Jaap's VDI Blog SpaceOracle Virtual Desktop Hands-on Exampleshttps://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/feed/entries/atom2014-01-31T23:31:16+00:00Apache Rollerhttps://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/entry/reduce_it_help_desk_callReduce IT Help Desk calls when using Oracle VDIJaap 2013-05-10T16:24:18+00:002013-05-10T16:32:17+00:00<div>Enjoying beach life in the Caribbean or hiking in the rolling hills of Tuscany. Blue skies, great temperatures, wine, fine food and spending some quality time with family and friends. All the great things you can do in the upcoming holiday season.</div>
<div>
<p>Is this an introduction for a Travel Blog or a serious article about Desktop Virtualization ? It is the latter, but it has to do with the former: the problem of the forgotten password after returning from the holidays.</p>
<h4>What is the problem ?</h4>
</div>
<div>
<p><img src="https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/resource/vdi/ovdi-forgotpwd.png" align="left" />After a relaxing holiday you turn on your Sun Ray or launch your OVDC application to connect to your virtual desktop in the data center. But then it happens, your holiday was so relaxed that you forgot your password and you are forced to pick-up the phone and call the IT Help Desk to ask the SysAdmin to reset your password.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p>With the introduction of complex password requirements, this is not an unusual scenario. IT staff is often burdened with resolving these calls, resulting in an increased administrative load for the IT department. At the same moment, the end user loses valuable work time because he is locked out of the network temporarily and unable to work. </p>
<p>With an average of 5% of the users who forgot their passwords after the holidays and an average cost of US $25 per help desk call, this can cost an organisation with 10.000 users around US $12.500 per two or three days when the holidays are over.</p>
<h4>How can we solve this ?</h4>
<p>Password expiration, forgotten passwords or other user access privileges are addressed by Identity Management systems. There are several solutions on the market and also Oracle has a nice solution which is called the <a href="http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/id-mgmt/overview/index-098451.html">Oracle Identity Manager</a>. </p>
<p>Explaining Identity Management is outside the scope of this article, so I skip that. But with a recently added and&nbsp;less known feature of the Oracle VDI broker (the Helper Function for the Desktop Login Screen) I explain how users are able to connect very easily to any web-based Help Desk system to do a Password Reset for example.</p>
</div>
<div>
<h4>How is it implemented ?</h4>
<p><img src="https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/resource/vdi/ovdi-optsmenu.png" align="left" />You can add an item to the <em>More Options</em> menu in the Oracle VDI Desktop Login screen to run temporarily an alternative kiosk session. In our Forgotten Password example this might be a kiosk web-browser connecting to the Identity Management system. The picture on the left shows the added entry in the <em>More Options</em> menu.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p>The Helper Function feature is very easy to implement. First you configure the helper application in the Sun Ray kiosk interface. In my Forgotten Password example I use a Firefox web-browser. I provide kiosk scripts at the bottom of this article (<strong>helpdesk.sh</strong> and <strong>helpdesk.conf</strong>) which I store in the <strong>helpdesk</strong> directory. And the second step is to configure the Oracle VDI broker to add the kiosk session as&nbsp;Helper Function in the Desktop Login screen.&nbsp;On all of your Oracle VDI broker servers you should do the following configuration steps:</p>
<div>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>Configure the name of a directory in the /etc/opt/SUNWkio/sessions directory, in my example <strong>helpdesk</strong>:</li>
</ul>
<pre> # /opt/SUNWvda/sbin/vda settings-setprops -p&nbsp;client.kiosk.type=helpdesk</pre>
<ul>
<li>Configure the label that displays in the <em>More Options</em> menu:</li>
</ul>
<pre> # /opt/SUNWvda/sbin/vda settings-setprops -p&nbsp;client.kiosk.label="Help Desk"</pre>
<ul>
<li>Configure any optional kiosk session arguments and settings that should be used when starting the kiosk session. For my kiosk web-browser it is the URL to the Identity Manager server:</li>
</ul>
<pre> # /opt/SUNWvda/sbin/vda settings-setprops -p client.kiosk.settings=http://server.url/</pre>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
</div>
<p>In the following video I demonstrate the Forgotten Password use-case scenario. In my demonstration I used the Oracle Identity Manager server (very kindly provided to me by my Oracle colleague <a href="https://twitter.com/reneklomp">Rene Klomp</a>) to reset the password. When the new password is entered in the Identity Manager system, it is automatically synchronized with the Active Directory server that is used by the Oracle VDI broker for user authentication.</p>
<p>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/uSPiqQzyHPA?rel=0" frameborder="0"></iframe>
</p>
<h4>Help Desk Kiosk scripts</h4>
<p>Here are the kiosk scripts that I used on my Oracle VDI Solaris server. Beware that you have to setup the correct Firefox prototype settings to store in the&nbsp;/etc/opt/SUNWkio/prototypes/default directory. I leave that as exercise for the reader&nbsp;.&nbsp;</p>
<pre># more /etc/opt/SUNWkio/sessions/helpdesk.conf
KIOSK_SESSION_EXEC=$KIOSK_SESSION_DIR/helpdesk.sh
KIOSK_SESSION_LABEL="Helpdesk Kiosk Mode"
<p>
# more /etc/opt/SUNWkio/sessions/helpdesk/helpdesk.sh
#!/bin/sh
FF_EXEC=/usr/bin/firefox
if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
zenity --error --text="No server specified\nConsult your System Administrator"
else
URL="$1"
fi
exec /usr/bin/metacity &amp;
if [ -x "${FF_EXEC}" ] ; then
$FF_EXEC -P Kiosk $URL
else
zenity --error --text="The Firefox Web-browser is not installed\nConsult your System Administrator"
fi
</p></pre>
<p> </p>
</div>https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/entry/connect_oracle_vdi_with_oracleConnect Oracle VDI with Oracle Enterprise ManagerJaap 2013-04-22T20:14:17+00:002013-04-22T20:14:17+00:00<p>Oracle is a datacenter company that can provide a complete integrated stack of hardware and software. The integrated stack gives a lot of benefits for Oracle's customers: engineered solutions, pre-tested, faster rollouts, one support contract and one-stop-shop. But&nbsp;due to its open architecture an Oracle solution is also&nbsp;flexible for customers who prefers to integrate with components from other vendors.</p>
<p>Oracle VDI is a perfect example of this strategy, it includes all necessary Oracle software to deploy a secure, server-hosted full VDI desktop over the network. At the same time the Oracle VDI product integrates with Desktop Virtualisation products from other vendors such as VMware or Citrix. It may even run the different vendor solutions in one, combined Oracle VDI deployment. No vendor lock-in !</p>
<div>
<p>Since Oracle VDI 3.5 there is another typical Oracle component integrated in the Oracle Desktop Virtualisation stack:&nbsp;Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12cR2. The main objective of the integration is to make systems monitoring easier for the Administrator. With the Enterprise Manager Plug-in for Oracle VDI, the entire installation can be monitored from a central management console.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p>For a customer demonstration, to demo the capabilities of the plug-in, I installed and configured my own OEM 12c server and connected it to my Oracle VDI 3.5 demo system. I would like to share my very positive experiences of the installation and configuration.</p>
<h4>Basic installation</h4>
<p>I installed OEM 12c on a bare-metal Oracle Linux server with 8GB of RAM. For the basic setup I used this excellent article from the Oracle-Base website:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.oracle-base.com/articles/12c/cloud-control-12cr2-installation-on-oracle-linux-5-and-6.php">Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c Release 2 Installation on Oracle Linux 5.8 and 6.3</a></p>
<p>This is a how-to guide to install all the components before you can start working with the Oracle VDI plug-in. The installation steps that I used for my server are:</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.oracle-base.com/articles/linux/oracle-linux-6-installation.php">Install Oracle Linux 6.3</a>;</li>
<li><a href="http://www.oracle-base.com/articles/11g/oracle-db-11gr2-installation-on-oracle-linux-6.php">Install Oracle Database 11gR2 (11.2.0.3)</a>;</li>
<li><a href="http://www.oracle-base.com/articles/12c/cloud-control-12cr2-installation-on-oracle-linux-5-and-6.php">Install Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c Release 2 (12.1.0.2)</a>;</li>
<li><a href="http://www.oracle-base.com/articles/12c/cloud-control-12cr2-post-installation-setup-tasks.php">OEM 12c Post installation setup tasks</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>I was impressed by these how-to guides, it made my installation much more simpler and after a few hours I had a running OEM 12c server.</p>
<h4>Oracle VDI plug-in Installation</h4>
<p>The Oracle VDI plug-in is a software component that you have to import and deploy on the OEM 12c server. There is no need to touch your running Oracle VDI production servers to install additional agents. In the below figure you see the architecture diagram from the Oracle VDI documentation.</p>
<p><img src="https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/resource/oem12c-arch.png" alt="Oracle VDI - OEM 12c Plug-in Architecture" /><br /></p>
<p>The Management Agent in the OEM 12c server establishes a secure connection to the Oracle VDI center agent. This is the component that controls your Oracle VDI hosts to provide a reliable and highly available service.&nbsp;</p>
<p>I followed the steps in chapter two from the <a href="http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24628_01/doc.121/e38982/toc.htm">Oracle VDI Plug-in User's Guide</a> (<a href="http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24628_01/doc.121/e38982.pdf">PDF</a>) to import, deploy and configure the connection to my Oracle VDI demo server:</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li><i>Importing and Deploying the Plug-in</i>; this is done through the OEM 12c Management Console (browser GUI);</li>
<li><i>Configuring Oracle VDI Targets</i>; these are the VDI specific targets for monitoring your Oracle VDI servers;</li>
<li><i>Provide Oracle VDI Center properties</i>; here you provide your Oracle VDI server address and credentials for your Oracle VDI Administrator account.</li>
</ul>
<p>Oracle VDI is using a delegated administration mechanism where you can setup multiple users as Administrator with different privileges. For OEM 12c it is recommended to setup a dedicated Administrator account with only company monitor and provider monitor privileges.</p>
<h4>Start Monitoring Oracle VDI Targets</h4>
<p>After you have deployed and configured the Oracle VDI plug-in for OEM 12c you need to give the system some time to collect all the data from your Oracle VDI Center. The default collection interval is 15 minutes, but after 24 hours you have a full picture. Future configuration changes in your Oracle VDI Center are picked-up automatically with an default interval of 24 hours.</p>
<p>To use the OEM 12c Management console you connect with the web-browser to the following address: <i>http://&lt;your-OEM12c-server:7803&gt;/em</i>.&nbsp;After you logged on as OEM 12c Administrator, you can navigate to the Oracle VDI Targets as shown in the diagram below.</p>
<p><img src="https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/resource/oem12c-ov.png" alt="OEM 12c Management Console for Oracle VDI Targets" /><br /></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>OEM 12c is collecting metrics with an interval of 15 minutes for most of the targets and an interval of 5 minutes for critical data.&nbsp;The data is visualized in the Oracle Enterprise Manager Console for recently collected data as well as for historical data. This allows you to identify possible bottlenecks and take pro-active or corrective actions.</p>
<p>OEM 12c is also used to report on critical events that require attention of the Administrator. For all of the metrics thresholds can be defined &nbsp;which triggers events when the threshold is crossed.</p>
<h4>Summary</h4>
<p><i>Enterprise-scale deployments need Enterprise-scale tools, right?</i> This is a phrase from <a href="https://blogs.oracle.com/fatbloke/entry/what_s_new_in_oracle1">Fatbloke's Blog article &quot;What's new in Oracle VDI 3.5</a>&quot;. True! </p>
<p>But at the same time, I had a lot of fun installing, configuring and testing the integration in my tiny demo server installation. So, when you are running a smaller Oracle VDI deployment with just a few servers (for 250 VMs for example) I'm sure you will be very happy with OEM 12c and the Oracle VDI plug-in to monitor your environment.</p>
<p> </p>
</div>https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/entry/oracle_vdi_3_5_installation1Oracle VDI 3.5 Installation notes for Solaris 11.1Jaap 2013-03-28T10:21:22+00:002013-03-28T10:21:22+00:00<div>Oracle released Oracle VDI 3.5 last week. You may have seen <a href="http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/1920496">the announcements on the Oracle website</a>, <a href="https://blogs.oracle.com/fatbloke/entry/what_s_new_in_oracle1">Blogs or social media</a>. In this article I want to share my installation notes of Oracle VDI 3.5 software on the newly supported Solaris 11.1 platform.&nbsp;</div>
<div><br /></div>
<div>For me, this was also my first Solaris 11 server installation experience and I was happy to find out that installing Solaris 11.1 and Oracle VDI 3.5 was a rather easy activity. On my lab server I used the <a href="http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/server-storage/solaris11/downloads/index.html">Solaris 11.1 text-based</a> installation, this is the image for server deployments and during the initial configuration I configured the server with static IP-address, my lab DNS server and DNS domain.</div>
<p> </p>
<div>
<p>During installation I created the initial user account with username <strong>vdiadmin</strong>. As you may know you can't login as the super-user <strong>root</strong> in Solaris 11 and for all the remaining system commands with root-privileges you can use the <strong>sudo</strong> command (or just change to the root-role with the <strong>su</strong> command).</p>
<p> </p>
</div>
<div>
<h3>Solaris Package Repository</h3>
<p>After the basic Solaris 11.1 installation you need to configure the Solaris Support repository. By default only the Release repository is configured. This is important, because Oracle VDI needs more Solaris packages then installed in the standard configuration, the Oracle VDI installer will download the packages automatically from the repository.</p>
<p>Run the below <strong>pkg</strong> command in Solaris to check the repository, initially it shows you the Release repository:</p>
<pre> # pkg publisher
PUBLISHER TYPE STATUS URI
solaris origin online http://pkg.oracle.com/solaris/release/
</pre>
<p>I used the information from the <a href="http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/articles/servers-storage-admin/o11-112-s11-first-steps-524819.html">Solaris documentation</a> to configure the online Solaris Support repository. If your server is not connected to the Internet, then you should configure your own, local repository by using the <a href="http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/server-storage/solaris11/downloads/index.html">Solaris 11.1 Repository Image</a>.&nbsp;</p>
<p>To configure the Solaris Support repository, obtain key and certificate files from <a href="https://pkg-register.oracle.com/">https://pkg-register.oracle.com/</a>. Login with your MOS credentials and follow the steps for Solaris 11 support. After you have finished the steps you can verify the changed repository and run a pkg update to install the latest Oracle Solaris 11 Support Repository Update (SRU) and reboot:</p>
<pre> # pkg publisher
PUBLISHER TYPE STATUS URI
solaris origin online https://pkg.oracle.com/solaris/support
# sudo pkg update
# sudo init 6
</pre>
<h3>Oracle VDI Installation Process</h3>
<p>If you download the <a href="http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/server-storage/virtualdesktop/downloads/index.html">Oracle VDI 3.5 software package</a>, you should pay attention to download the correct installation zip-file. There is now a difference between Solaris 10 and Solaris 11 installation zip-files.&nbsp;</p>
<p>After unpacking the VDI 3.5 installation zip-files, I decided to run <strong>vda-install</strong> and <strong>vda-config</strong> separately:</p>
<pre> # sudo ./vda-install -i
</pre>
<p>The installer starts to check the required libraries and packages in Solaris 11.1. In my case (text-based Solaris 11.1 installation) it needed to download about 600 MB of data from the Solaris 11 repository. After the download and installation of the packages, the Oracle VDI installer automatically continues with the basic Oracle VDI installation.</p>
<p>Depending on your network connection, downloading 600 MB of Solaris packages takes some time. You may monitor the process by viewing the installation log file (in a separate Terminal window) for information about the progress of downloading and installing the packages.</p>
<pre> # tail -f /var/sadm/install/logs/vda-install.<em>timestamp</em>.log
</pre>
<p>I decided to do a reboot when <b>vda-install</b> was finished because of all the newly installed packages. I'm not sure if this is really necessary. After the reboot I continued with the <strong>vda-config</strong> command to start the configuration of my single-node Oracle VDI server. In the configuration settings I used my initial user <strong>vdiadmin</strong> as VDI Administrator:</p>
<pre> # sudo /opt/SUNWvda/sbin/vda-config
...
Review the settings for a new Oracle VDI Center:
Name: VDI Center
Administrator Password: ********
VDI Administrator (super-user): <b>vdiadmin</b>
DNS name of this host: ovdi-host20.ovdi.local
Maximum number of sessions on this host: 100
User ID range start: 150000
Database: Embedded Oracle VDI
Do you want to create the Oracle VDI Center now?
Enter 'c' to customize the settings. ([y]/c):
<p>&nbsp;</p></pre>
<h3>Virtual Box Installation Process</h3>
<p>Because of the changes in Solaris 11 for the root-role, I decided to configure the Virtual Box processes under non-root privileges: you can use your standard user ('vdiadmin' in my case).&nbsp;</p>
<p>Because of the non-root priviliges, you are also forced to configure a non-privileged TCP port for the Virtual Box web-service. I used the TCP port that was suggested by the installer: </p>
<pre> # sudo ./vb-install
Oracle VM VirtualBox Installation for Solaris
Unpacking Oracle VM VirtualBox package.
Select an existing user for VirtualBox: <strong>vdiadmin</strong>
Enter the password for user 'vdiadmin': <strong>#########</strong>
Specify the VirtualBox SSL port [18083]: <strong>18083</strong>
Oracle VM VirtualBox 4.2.10 Installation
+ Installing Oracle VM VirtualBox Core
...etc etc....
<p>&nbsp;</p></pre>
<p> </p>
<h3>Connect to the Oracle VDI Manager</h3>
<p>If you connect with Firefox to the Oracle VDI Manager for the first time, you got the following error message on the secure port of the VDI Manager:</p>
<p><img src="https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/resource/vdi/sol11-ovdi35-ff.png" align="middle" /><br /></p>
<p>This error is mentioned in the <a href="http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E36500_01/E36501/html/relnotes-bug-14802239.html">Oracle VDI 3.5 Release Notes</a>.&nbsp;Oracle Solaris 11 uses Transport Layer Security (TLS) version 1.1, which Firefox does not support yet.&nbsp;The workaround is to connect and authenticate with TLS 1.0 disabled in Firefox preferences:</p>
<pre> Advanced -&gt; Encryption, unchecked Use TLS 1.0.
<p>&nbsp;</p></pre>
<h3>Some Closing Remarks</h3>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>NTP services: works exactly the same as with Solaris 10, just make sure <b>/etc/inet/ntp.conf</b> has the right server settings before you start configuring Oracle VDI.</li>
<li>Kerberos: also works the same as Solaris 10. I used copied my <b>/etc/krb/krb5.conf</b> configuration file from Solaris 10 without any changes.</li>
<li>I also did another Solaris 11.1 installation where I used the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/server-storage/solaris11/downloads/index.html">Oracle Solaris 11.1 Live Media for x86</a>, that also worked fine. I only had some difficulties changing IP-address from DHCP to static. Just read the documentation or Google to use the right procedure.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
</div>https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/entry/scott_mcnealy_and_sun_raysScott McNealy and Sun RaysJaap 2011-12-28T10:12:28+00:002011-12-29T10:26:21+00:00<p><img hspace="5" align="left" vspace="5" src="http://gigaom2.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/scott-mcnealy-2.jpg?w=300&amp;h=199" /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_McNealy">Scott McNealy</a> was one of the four founders of Sun Microsystems and for a long time he served as a CEO. &nbsp;I always had a very positive feeling about him when I was a Sun employee. I've seen him a couple of times in real life during several events and I liked his charisma and humor. </p>
<p>During the Sun days Scott McNealy&nbsp;was a big promoter of Sun Rays, it was the ultimate example of &quot;<a href="http://thenetworkisthecomputer.com/"><i>The Network is the Computer</i></a>&quot;. </p>
<p>He still is a big fan of Sun Rays. In a recent article on the GIGAOM website (a series of articles called &quot;<a href="http://gigaom.com/2011/12/27/12-for-2012/">12 tech leaders’ resolutions for 2012</a>&quot;) Scott McNealy said the following about Sun Ray:&nbsp;<i>I’m always pining away for my old Sun Ray. I hate my Mac. I hate my phone. The amount of time our family spends on administrating this stuff is outrageous. The horror of the expenses we pay to keep upgrading the client! I had the same Sun Ray in my home office for seven years. It’s the best computing in the world–absolutely stateless, data-less, super-thin. It is still the right answer, and we’ll get there someday.</i></p>
<p>If you are a frequent reader of this blog then you know that the Sun Ray technology is embedded in the Oracle Desktop Virtualization Solution (Oracle VDI). And needless to say I fully agree (uuhhh not fully, I like my Mac) with the above statement from Scott McNealy :-)</p>
<p> </p>https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/entry/oracle_virtual_desktop_client_forOracle Virtual Desktop Client for iPad 1.1 is releasedJaap 2011-12-20T12:20:06+00:002011-12-20T12:20:06+00:00<p>In the iPad App Store you will find a new release of the Oracle Virtual Desktop Client for iPad. This is version 1.1 of the client and when you installed the App already on your iPad it automatically announces itself in the Updates section.</p>
<p>With OVDC for iPad you can connect from the iPad to your hosted virtual desktop in the data-center infrastructure. See my blog article <a href="http://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/entry/oracle_virtual_desktop_client_on">OVDC for iPad in action</a> with an explanation and sample use-cases.</p>
<p>The improvements in the new release (as documented in the <a href="http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E23617_01/index.html">OTN documentation website</a>) are focused around user experience:</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li><b>External Keyboard Support</b>:&nbsp;you can use an Apple Wireless Keyboard or Apple iPad Keyboard Dock as an external keyboard.</li>
<li><b>Improved On-Screen Keyboard Language Support</b>: users can now configure international languages for the on-screen keyboard. See the release notes for the supported languages.</li>
<li><b>New on-screen button icons</b>: enable you to quickly display the on-screen keyboard and the Oracle Virtual Desktop Client side bar. The button icons provide an alternative to using gestures.</li>
<li><b>iPad Settings</b>: the iPad Settings app now includes a section called Virtual Desktop. Here you can configure settings for Oracle Virtual Desktop Client, such as the language used for the on-screen keyboard and whether to display button icons for the side bar and keyboard.</li>
<li><b>New Gesture:</b> a new gesture has been introduced that emulates the middle scroll wheel on a mouse. To use the scroll gesture, drag upwards or downwards with two fingers.</li>
</ul>
<p>After I installed the update and connected to a remote server, the on-screen keyboard immediately displayed automatically. This is a change with the previous version where you first had to use the three finger gesture to display the on-screen keyboard before you could enter the user-credentials.</p>
<p>I also played with changing the keyboard language. You set the primary keyboard country and OVDC will send the keyboard country code to the remote server where the virtual desktops are hosted. This is done in the&nbsp;<b>iPad Settings&nbsp;</b>app, in the&nbsp;<b>Virtual Desktop</b>&nbsp;section. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/resource/sunray/ovdc-ipad-keyboard.jpg" alt="OVDC for iPad Keyboard Language" /><br /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Check also that the language you select for the primary keyboard country is present in the list of supported keyboards on the <b>General, International, Keyboards</b> page in <b>iPad Settings</b>.&nbsp;If the keyboard language is not present in this list, add the language.</p>
<p>In the sample screenshot you can see that I added four languages to my list, when you press the Globe key you can select the language that matches your primary keyboard country. I tested the French AZERTY layout and changed it to my preferred US layout.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/entry/white_paper_design_proposal_forWhite Paper: Design Proposal for Hosted Virtual DesktopsJaap 2011-12-14T13:18:19+00:002011-12-14T13:18:19+00:00<p>Oracle released a white paper for Oracle VDI: <a href="http://www.oracle.com/us/technologies/virtualization/vdi-design-proposal-1401195.pdf">A&nbsp;Design Proposal for Hosted Virtual Desktops</a>. The white paper discusses a design proposal for Windows 7 virtual desktops hosted on Oracle Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. It proposes infrastructure for 500, 1000 and 1500 users.</p>
<p><img src="https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/resource/vdi/arch-vdi-wp.png" align="left" />Topics discussed in the white paper are the high-level architecture, capacity planning and design decisions. The white paper finishes with performance optimizations.</p>
<p>The infrastructure in the white paper is based on the full Oracle stack of products, from the end-user client to the storage in the data-center.&nbsp;</p>
<p>For the storage tier it discusses the Oracle Sun ZFS Storage appliance and calculations are &nbsp;presented for IOPS for the virtual desktops.</p>
<p>The virtualization tier is represented by the Oracle VDI built-in hypervisor Oracle VM VirtualBox running on Sun Fire x86 servers.</p>
<p>The session management layer discusses the Oracle VDI core technology. For a 500 desktop deployment, only a 10 core capacity is required for the client sessions. This may be deployed on bare-metal or virtualized on a server-hosted platform.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Furthermore, the client tier is used by several hardware clients: Sun Ray ultra-thin clients and the OVDC software application running on Windows PCs, Mac OS X and tablet devices such as the Apple iPad.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The white paper finishes with the following statement: <i>&quot;A complete VDI solution requires tying together server hardware, storage hardware and networking technology, in addition to deploying VDI software. Oracle is alone as a VDI vendor in being able to deliver the complete stack: software and hardware engineered to work together.&quot;</i> </p>
<p> </p>https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/entry/new_technical_product_guide_forNew technical product guide for Sun Ray clientsJaap 2011-11-22T02:40:39+00:002012-01-06T02:20:18+00:00<p>In the Oracle online documentation system a new <a href="http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E25618_02/index.html">Sun Ray clients&nbsp;Technical Product guide</a>&nbsp;has been published. The document provides detailed information about the similarities and differences between the three Sun Ray client hardware models: Sun Ray 3, Sun Ray 3 plus and Sun Ray 3i.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/resource/sunray/sr3i-techguide.jpg" alt="Sun Ray 3i" align="left" />From the description of the Technical Product guide I want to quote the following section:</p>
<p><em>&quot;......Since Sun Ray 3 Series Clients have no local operating system and require no local management, they eliminate the complexity, expenses, and security vulnerabilities associated with other thin client and PC solutions. ......&quot;</em></p>
<p>This is always one of the great advantages of Sun Ray clients compared to&nbsp;<em>other thin clients</em>&nbsp;(which are actually <em>low-fat PCs </em>where you have to manage thin client OS images)<em>.</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>The guide&nbsp;lists the features and technical specifications of the Sun Ray Client such as number of ports, chassis, graphics, network interfaces, power supply, operating conditions,&nbsp;MTBF, reliability, and other standards.</p>
<p>The guide also contains a separate chapter about environmental data. As you may know, the Sun Ray 3 Series clients are designed specifically to be sensitive to a spectrum of environmental concerns and standards, from materials to manufacturing processes to shipping, operation, and end of life. The Sun Ray 3 Series clients complies to environmental standards and certifications such as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Star">Energy Star 5.0</a>, <a href="http://www.epeat.net/">EPEAT</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Electrical_and_Electronic_Equipment_Directive">WEEE</a> and RoHS (see the Oracle policy for <a href="http://www.oracle.com/us/products/applications/green/harmful-substances-185039.html">RoHS and REACH</a>).</p>https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/entry/oracle_virtual_desktop_client_onOracle Virtual Desktop Client on iPad in actionJaap 2011-07-19T14:48:16+00:002011-07-22T09:04:15+00:00<p>You may have seen the product announcements two weeks ago for <a href="/virtualization/entry/oracle_desktop_virtualization_is_on">Oracle Virtual Desktop Client (OVDC) for iPad</a> and the new release of <a href="http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/427136">Oracle VDI 3.3</a>.</p>
<p>With OVDC for iPad you can connect from the iPad to your virtual desktop in the data-centre. This could be done from the local LAN (when moving between different office spaces or meeting rooms) or from any place connected to the Internet using the features for security with VPN support.</p>
<p>The key-point in using OVDC on the iPad (when you are on the move)&nbsp;is a quick look to secured and protected data, for example through business applications in your company or accessing patient records in a healthcare organization. Instead of using multiple iPad apps (with or without built-in security features) you only have a single OVDC app to access your desktop or applications infrastructure in the data centre.</p>
<p>The past two weeks I used the iPad in several circumstances to connect to the virtual desktop in the data centre. I used both private and public WiFi networks and also a 3G connection through a mobile phone (tethering). I was very surprised about the <a href="http://twitpic.com/5m7g3e">network performance of OVDC on the iPad</a>, the efficient ALP protocol enabled me to work on a remote desktop over a 3G connection.</p>
<p>Last week I also installed and configured the VDI 3.3 software on my demo server and I thought about iPad use-cases to demonstrate during my customer presentations. During a demo of the Sun Ray and Oracle VDI technology I always see some great moments of enthusiasm when customers understand how they can use this cool technology to relieve from their daily struggle with IT infrastructures. </p>
<p>With the OVDC for iPad there is another great moment of enthusiasm introduced during the demo and I captured some of the iPad use-case scenario's of my demo in the below video.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
<iframe width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/pSOs0x0Ughk?rel=0&amp;hd=1" frameborder="0"></iframe>
</p>
<div>
<p>This video demonstrates the following scenario's:</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>Launching OVDC on iPad (0:08)</li>
<li>Connect to Oracle VDI server (0:26)</li>
<li>Firefox in Windows 7 session (0:42)</li>
<li>Open Office presentation in Windows 7 (1:16)</li>
<li>VoIP (Skype) in Windows 7 (1:59)</li>
<li>Using Text editor in Windows XP (3:26)</li>
</ul>Some pieces of the video are blurred, my camera had some focus problems.
<p> </p>
</div>https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/entry/oracle_sgd_4_61_releasedOracle SGD 4.61 ReleasedJaap 2011-05-13T01:10:52+00:002011-05-13T01:10:52+00:00<p>This week, Oracle also released a new 4.61 version of <a href="http://www.oracle.com/us/technologies/virtualization/061996.html">Oracle Secure Global Desktop</a> software. This is positioned as a minor release, but it has some important bug-fixes. Some of &nbsp;these bug-fixes are important for the connection to Oracle VDI desktops and are fixed in this release:</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>Launching VDI desktops hosted on a Microsoft Remote Desktop provider&nbsp;</li>
<li>SGD VDI Broker does handle multiple companies</li>
<li>Launching VDI desktops in a VDI server pool that uses NAT</li>
</ul>
<p>For a complete list of bug-fixes you can follow this link: <a href="http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E19351-01/E23103-01/z40000161620234.html">http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E19351-01/E23103-01/z40000161620234.html&nbsp;</a></p>
<div>
<p>Download the SGD 4.61 software package from the <a href="http://edelivery.oracle.com/">Oracle edelivery website</a>. Select<b> Oracle Desktop Virtualization Products</b> in the Product Pack and the Platform you want to install. You will get a list of products where you can download the Oracle SGD 4.61 media pack (it is 361MB for Oracle Solaris).</p>
<p>The complete Documentation bundle is published in <a href="http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E19351-01/index.html">HTML and PDF</a>. You will find here Release Notes, Installation and Administration guides.</p>
<p> </p>
</div>
<p>&nbsp;</p>https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/entry/sun_ray_software_5_2Sun Ray Software 5.2 ReleasedJaap 2011-05-10T13:06:16+00:002011-05-10T13:06:16+00:00<p>Today, Oracle released a new version of Sun Ray Server software. This new version 5.2 contains some significant changes and is a further step in the integration to a full Oracle product.</p>
<p>The documentation is not anymore on the good old Sun Wikis website, it is migrated to the Oracle documentation system and <a href="http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E22662_01/">available as pdf documents</a>. Like the previous version, the software bundle can be downloaded from the Oracle edelivery website, I used this <a href="http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/server-storage/sunrayproducts/downloads/index.html">entry point to edelivery</a>.</p>
<p>Things have also changed for System Administrators. The Sun Ray Webadmin GUI is changed to the Oracle look-and-feel (which we already know from the Oracle VDI software).</p>
<p><img src="/jaapr/resource/vdi/srs52-gui.jpg" alt="Sun Ray Server WebAdmin GUI" /> </p>
<p>A second change for the SysAdmin is the single installer (the <b>utsetup</b> command) that installs the entire Sun Ray Software product on the Sun Ray server. It installs the Sun Ray server, the Windows connector, the VMware View connector and the smart card services (based on PC/SC-lite). After installing the packages, the <b>utsetup</b> command steps through the configuration process. A reboot of the Sun Ray server between installation of the packages and configuration of the Sun Ray server is not necessary anymore.</p>
<p>The <b>utsetup</b> command also has a feature to automate the Sun Ray server installation and configuration process. With a response-file created during your first <b>utsetup</b> run, you can clone the Sun Ray server setup on other servers.</p>
<p>Another change important for the SysAdmin is the Firmware provisioning process. In previous versions, there were two versions of the firmware delivered: non-GUI firmware and a GUI firmware. In this release, there is one firmware version and the GUI must be enabled through configuration.&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;Other changes visible for the end-user are (see also the <a href="http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E22662_01/PDF/EN/SRS5.2-RN-E22660-01.pdf">Release Notes</a>):</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>Improved performance for video and audio streams on Windows XP and Windows 2003</li>
<li>Audio optimization which helps for reduced bandwidth and increased scalability</li>
<li>USB headset support for a specific list of USB headsets.</li>
<li>Better multi-monitor support and enhancements for VPN and Networking.</li>
</ul>
<p>The Sun Ray Server software is supported on the following operating systems platforms:</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>Solaris 10 5/09 or later on SPARC and x86 platforms</li>
<li>Solaris 10 5/09 or later on SPARC and x86 platforms with Solaris Trusted Extensions</li>
<li>Oracle Linux 5.5 (32-bit and 64-bit)</li>
<li>Oracle Linux 5.6 (32-bit and 64-bit)</li>
</ul>
<div>See the&nbsp;<a href="http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E22662_01/PDF/EN/SRS5.2-IG-E22659-01.pdf">Installation and Configuration Guide</a> for the support statement for Red Hat servers and additional software requirements.&nbsp;</div>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/entry/using_oracle_vdi_with_mitelUsing Oracle VDI with Mitel VoIP.Jaap 2011-01-11T04:12:45+00:002011-01-11T12:12:45+00:00<p>I was involved in an Oracle VDI implementation where the customer also used the <a href="http://www.mitel.com/">Mitel</a> VoIP solution in their telephony network. Mitel and Sun have developed the <a href="http://www.mitel.com/DocController?documentId=27874">Mitel Unified IP Client for Sun Ray</a> which is an integration of Sun Ray with a hard IP phone. </p>
<p>The solution combines the Sun Ray hot-desking features with the check-in/check-out in the telephony system. When you insert your smart-card into the Sun Ray, you are also checked-in into the VoIP system. If you search &quot;<a href="http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Mitel+Sun+Ray&amp;aq=f">Mitel Sun Ray</a>&quot; on YouTube you will see several videos with a demo. I selected this nice <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbq4ShV3MAU">video of Mitel's Unified IP Client for Sun Ray</a>.</p>
<p>Mitel provides Sun Ray Kiosk software to integrate the two platforms. Included are connection-scripts to Windows Terminal servers and Citrix XenApp servers. My customer wanted to integrate the Mitel Kiosk software with the Oracle VDI broker and I added a few configuration steps to the implementation. My main-objective was not to touch the Oracle VDI code or the Mitel code. So I added a little wrapper-script to the Mitel Kiosk software directory and linked it to the standard software. You have to add this code and commands on every Oracle VDI node in the cluster.</p>
<h4>1. Create Mitel Kiosk connection script:&nbsp;</h4>
<p>This is the script that is the connection between the Mitel Sun Ray kiosk software and the Oracle VDI kiosk script. Please, keep in mind that in the case you have added additional VDI parameters in the Sun Ray Kiosk interface, you have to add them once again in the below connection script. I created the script with the <b>vi</b> editor, but you can also use <b>gedit</b> if you are in a Solaris desktop session.</p>
<pre>root@vdiserver:~# vi /opt/Mitel/bin/mikioskhdlr_vdi
-------&lt;snip&gt;------
#!/bin/bash
#
# Description:
# Kiosk mode connect handler for Oracle VDI. Initiated by
# misession, via symbolic link from mikioskhdlr.
#
# DISCLAIMER: This is added to the standard mitel kiosk mode interface
# as add-on to test the interface with Oracle VDI.
# The code is not checked or certified by Mitel.
theModule="mikioskhdlr_vdi"
# Include system configuration
. /opt/Mitel/etc/config/misystem.conf
# Insert your VDA Kiosk parameters below, when needed.
VDA_OPTIONS=""
# Start VDI Kiosk session
KIOSK_SESSION_DIR=/etc/opt/SUNWkio/sessions/vda
export KIOSK_SESSION_DIR
/etc/opt/SUNWkio/sessions/vda/vda $VDA_OPTIONS
exit $?
-------&lt;snip&gt;------</pre>
<p> </p>
<h4>2. Make the script executable:</h4>
<p> </p>
<pre>root@vdiserver:~# chmod 755 /opt/Mitel/bin/mikioskhdlr_vdi </pre>
<p> </p>
<h4>3. Remove default symbolic link:</h4>
<p> </p>
<pre>root@vdiserver:~# rm /opt/Mitel/bin/mikioskhdlr </pre>
<p> </p>
<h4>4. Remove default symbolic link:</h4>
<p> </p>
<pre>root@vdiserver:~# ln -s /opt/Mitel/bin/mikioskhdlr_vdi /opt/Mitel/bin/mikioskhdlr </pre>
<p> </p><br />https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/entry/writing_scripts_for_the_sunWriting scripts for the Sun Ray Kiosk interfaceJaap 2010-10-06T03:10:43+00:002010-10-06T10:10:43+00:00<p>I guess most people involved with the administration of Sun Rays and Sun Ray servers do know the Kiosk Mode interface functionality. The Kiosk Mode interface is one of the two modes of operation in the Sun Ray server software (the other one is the regular desktop of the Sun Ray server). Kiosk Mode is used to deliver any kind of virtual desktop (see image) or application to the Sun Ray user. It is highly customizable and for the Sun Ray Administrator one of the fun parts of the Sun Ray technology.</p>
<p><img border="1" src="/jaapr/resource/vdi/selectyourdesktop.png" align="middle" /> </p>
<p>A few weeks ago <a href="http://twitter.com/thinguy">Thin Guy</a> announced the <a href="http://www.filibeto.org/pipermail/sunray-users/2010-September/016271.html">Sun Ray Kiosk Mode &quot;SDK&quot;</a> in the <a href="http://www.sun-rays.org/">Sun Ray Users mailing-list</a>. He called this announcement a soft launch, the guide is wiki based and a Work in Progress document. In my view this soft launch was a bit to humble, it is a very nice piece of work that needs more attention. </p>
<p>If you like to write your own kiosk scripts or start to write, but never found the right directions in the official Sun Ray documentation, you will like this document.&nbsp;I copied this introduction from the <a href="http://wikis.sun.com/display/DVDEV/Sun+Ray+Kiosk+SDK">Sun Ray Kiosk Session Development Kit</a>:</p>
<blockquote class="webkit-indent-blockquote" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 40px; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">
<p><em>&quot;This site is intended to aid those who interested in creating customized Kiosk Session Types. It is also for those who desire a technical understanding about the design and architecture of Kiosk Mode for Sun Ray Server Software (SRSS) 4.2 and later&quot;</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>The information is presented in different sections. It describes the support statement, the architecture and components of the Sun Ray Kiosk interface and you can also find examples and tips-and-tricks. The document is useful for new Kiosk script developers as well as for advanced developers.&nbsp;</p>
<p>You can find the document in the <a href="http://wikis.sun.com/display/DVDEV/Home">Desktop Virtualization Developer Information Center</a>. I have created a pdf-document (October 6th, 2010) with the complete&nbsp;<a href="/jaapr/resource/documents/SunRayKiosk-SDK-20101006.pdf">Sun Ray Kiosk SDK pdf-file</a>. Print it and take it to your home, it is good reading stuff for the weekend.</p>https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/entry/summary_of_recent_oracle_vdiSummary of recent Oracle VDI updates and announcementsJaap 2010-09-28T03:03:59+00:002010-09-28T10:13:06+00:00<p>
Last week I was on vacation and when I came back in the office last Monday I discovered a lot of updates and announcements related to Oracle VDI and Sun Ray clients. In this article I provide a quick summary of several email, press-announcements and blogs I have seen. The sources I used are the <a href="/thinkthin/">Think Thin blog</a>, <a href="/werkplek/">Arjan's Dutch Werkplek blog</a>, <a href="http://virtualdesktops.blogspot.com/">Remold's Virtual Desktop blog</a> and <a href="http://www.oracle.com/">oracle.com</a>.</p>
<h4>Sun Ray Software patches:</h4>
<h4><span style="font-weight: normal; ">It is always good to monitor the wiki with <a href="http://wikis.sun.com/display/SRS/Home#tab:Patches">Sun Ray Software Patches</a>. Last week, patches were released for Sun Ray Server Software (SRSS) and the Sun Ray Connector for Windows (SRWC). These patches are mainly fixing bugs related to audio upstream for Windows desktops. They also provide firmware support for the new Sun Ray clients. <a href="http://wikis.sun.com/display/SRS/Home#tab:Patches">See the wiki</a> for the actual patch download links for your Sun Ray server platform (e.g. for my x86 servers it is <a href="http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetkey=1-21-140994-05-1">140994-05</a>&nbsp;for SRSS and <a href="http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetkey=1-21-143215-04-1">143215-04</a> for SRWC)</span></h4>
<h4>New Oracle Sun Ray clients:</h4>
<p>This was really great news from Oracle Open World where Oracle <a href="http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/173484">announced two new Sun Ray client hardware devices</a>. The Sun Ray 3 is the successor of the Sun Ray 2 client and the Sun Ray 3i is the successor of the Sun Ray 270. For both devices Oracle has published datasheets (<a href="http://www.oracle.com/us/technologies/virtualization/sunray-3-client-ds-173275.pdf">Sun Ray 3</a> and <a href="http://www.oracle.com/us/technologies/virtualization/sunray-3i-client-ds-167812.pdf">Sun Ray 3i</a>).</p>
<p><img border="1" src="/jaapr/resource/vdi/sr3-slide.png" align="left" /></p>
<p><img border="1" src="/jaapr/resource/vdi/sr3i-slide.png" /> </p>
<p>In the <a href="http://wikis.sun.com/display/SunRay/Home">Sun Ray Hardware Information Center</a> you can find the more technical releated documentation such as release notes and the technical specifications.</p>
<h4>New Release of Oracle Secure Global Desktop:</h4>
<p>It was also a great week for Secure Global Desktop. A completely Oracle rebranded SGD version 4.6 was released. The new release can be downloaded from the old <a href="https://cds.sun.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/WFS/CDS-CDS_SMI-Site/en_US/-/USD/ViewProductDetail-Start?ProductRef=OSGD-4.6-M-G-F@CDS-CDS_SMI">Sun download site</a> or from Oracle's <a href="http://edelivery.oracle.com/">edelivery download</a> site and choose Oracle Desktop Virtualization products.</p>
<p><img border="1" src="/jaapr/resource/vdi/sgd-login.png" /> </p>
<p>As you may know SGD provides secure access to centralized, server-hosted &nbsp;Windows, UNIX, mainframe, and midrange applications or full-screen desktops. This is provided to a wide variety of popular client &nbsp;devices with a java-enabled browser. SGD is especially interesting for companies using Oracle's business applications and providing secure access from the Internet to these applications.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The new release has enhancements for Windows applications support, better availability and scalability support and enhancements for AD and LDAP directories.</p>
<h4>Flash Demo of Oracle VDI:</h4>
<p><img border="1" src="/jaapr/resource/vdi/vdi-flashdemo.png" /> </p>
<p>Also updated on the Oracle website, a&nbsp;<a href="http://www.oracle.com/pls/ebn/swf_viewer.load?p_shows_id=9248932">flash animated demo</a> of Oracle Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI).</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/entry/new_oracle_sun_ray_clientsNew Oracle Sun Ray Clients introducedJaap 2010-09-20T12:55:35+00:002010-09-20T19:55:35+00:00<p>At Oracle Open World new Oracle Sun Ray Clients are introduced, you can read the <a href="http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/173484">press-announcement</a>, but also additional information on the <a href="/ThinkThin/entry/new_arrivals_to_the_sun">ThinkThin blog</a> and the <a href="/werkplek/entry/oracle_unveils_new_sun_ray">Dutch Werkplek blog</a>&nbsp;from my colleague Arjan. In the below picture, you see on the left the new Sun Ray 3 and on the right side the Sun Ray 3i. </p>
<p>Some of the new features are 10/100/1000 Mbit/s ethernet on both models, a power-switch, bigger resolutions and automatic (and configurable) power off feature. Needless to say is that the three models are fully compatible with the current Oracle VDI and Sun Ray server software.</p>
<p><img border="1" src="/jaapr/resource/vdi/new-sr.png" /> </p>
<p>For both Sun Ray 3 models, the technical data is available in the&nbsp;<a href="http://wikis.sun.com/display/SunRay/Home">Sun Ray Hardware Information Center</a>. For the Sun Ray 3 model you can find the following information:</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://wikis.sun.com/display/SunRay/Sun+Ray+3+Client+Release+Notes">Sun Ray 3 Release Notes</a></li>
<li><a href="http://wikis.sun.com/display/SunRay/Sun+Ray+3+Client+Technical+Specifications">Sun Ray 3&nbsp;Technical Specifications</a></li>
<li><a href="http://wikis.sun.com/download/attachments/198869457/821-0461-10.pdf?version=1&amp;modificationDate=1284999346000">Sun Ray 3&nbsp;Getting Started Guide</a></li>
</ul>
<div>
<p>For the Sun Ray 3i model it is:</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://wikis.sun.com/display/SunRay/Sun+Ray+3i+Client+Release+Notes">Sun Ray 3i Release Notes</a></li>
<li><a href="http://wikis.sun.com/display/SunRay/Sun+Ray+3i+Client+Technical+Specifications">Sun Ray 3i Technical Specifications</a></li>
<li><a href="http://wikis.sun.com/download/attachments/198869457/821-0463-10.pdf?version=1&amp;modificationDate=1284999346000">Sun Ray 3i Getting Started Guide</a></li>
</ul>
<div><br /></div>
<p> </p>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/entry/working_with_fastprep_in_oracleWorking with Fastprep in Oracle VDIJaap 2010-09-16T12:58:40+00:002010-09-16T19:58:40+00:00<p>
Oracle VDI has a feature to bypass the standard system preparation in Windows virtual desktops
during the clone process. This feature is called Fast Preparation (Fastprep) and it
reduces the clone time of a virtual desktop. In this article I want to share with you my experiences with Fastprep including some trouble-shooting tips.</p>
<p>
For a successful clone operation in the Oracle VDI server, virtual machines for the Windows operating system
requires customization. This is done after creation of the virtual machine when the cloned virtual machine
starts-up for the first time. Fastprep changes the computer name of each virtual machine, it joins the
domain and optionally you can execute your own post-customization script. </p>
<p> Fastprep does not require special preparation in the template before you clone, but before importing your
virtual machine template in the Desktop Pool in the Oracle VDI Manager make sure:
</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>The template is not a member of the domain, it must be a member of the workgroup.</li>
<li>Store your post-customization script in the template if that is required.</li>
</ul>
<div>
<p>To configure Fastprep you have to fill in the following parameters (see the image):</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>Mandatory: windows domain,&nbsp;domain administrator, domain administrator password, desktop administrator (of the template) and desktop administrator password.</li>
<li>Optional: custom computer container DN and location of the post-customization script.&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
<div>
<p><img border="1" src="/jaapr/resource/vdi/fastprep.png" /></p>
<p>Under the cover, during the clone process the Oracle VDI core mounts a floppy drive image in the virtual machine. The floppy image contains a program <strong>fastprep.exe</strong> that is executed when the virtual machine is started for the first time.&nbsp;I have seen some errors in this process, they were mainly related to how things in Windows works (and not related to Oracle VDI).&nbsp;A common error message was:&nbsp;<em>Execution of command A:\\FASTPREP.EXE...</em>. Below I will show you some trouble-shooting tips.</p>
<h4>1. Increase Log level detail:&nbsp;</h4>
<p>The Oracle VDI Core service runs as a module within the Common Agent Container (Cacao) on the Solaris server. Error messages are stored in a log-file&nbsp;/var/cacao/instances/default/logs/cacao.0 and during your trouble-shooting you may increase the log-level of detail. This is done by the following CLI-commands:</p>
<pre>root@vdiserver:~# cacaoadm set-filter -p com.sun.vda.service=ALL
root@vdiserver:~# cacaoadm stop -f
root@vdiserver:~# cacaoadm start</pre>
<p> </p>
<h4>2. Keep the failed Virtual Machine:&nbsp;</h4>
<p>When the clone operation failed, the Oracle VDI Core removes the virtual machine and it tries to clone again by initiating a new clone process. You can configure Oracle VDI to disable clone cleanup after a failure. You do this with the following CLI-command on the Oracle VDI server:</p>
<p> <span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre; ">root@vdiserver:~# /opt/SUNWvda/sbin/vda settings-setprops -p cloning.cleanup.failures=false</span></p>
<p>When you are finished with trouble-shooting you can configure it back to the default by setting the property to true.</p>
<h4>3. Inspect Virtual Box VM Logfile:</h4>
<p>After the change in step 2 your failed virtual machine keeps running on the Virtual Box server. In the VDI Manager it is registered in a reserved state and it will never be assigned to a user. In the VDI Manager you also see on which Virtual Box server your virtual machine is runing. Now you have time to inspect the Virtual Box virtual machine log file on the Virtual Box server. Go to the Virtual Box server with ssh (or putty from Windows):</p>
<pre>root@vdiserver:~# ssh root@vboxserver
root@vboxserver:~# cd /root/.VirtualBox/Machines/VDA/&lt;vmname&gt;/Logs
root@vboxserver:~# more VBox.log<font class="Apple-style-span" face="Times"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal;"><strong>
</strong></span></font></pre>
<h4>4. Access Virtual Machine through Console</h4>
<p>If you want to inspect what is going on in your failed virtual machine, you can access your virtual machine through the console. This could be done in the VDI Manager, Desktop Console. See the below picture as an example:</p>
<p><img border="1" src="/jaapr/resource/vdi/desktop-console.png" /> </p>
<p>As an alternative you can also use a rdp-client to access the vRDP server of the virtual machine. In the VDI Manager's Desktop Summary page you will find the IP port-number (on the Virtual Box server) of the virtual machine console. See the below picture:</p>
<p><img border="1" src="/jaapr/resource/vdi/guest-overview.png" /> </p>
<p>With the uttsc (or rdesktop if you are not on a Sun Ray) client you can connect to the desktop console: &nbsp;</p>
<pre>root@vdiserver:~# /opt/SUNWuttsc/bin/uttsc -g 800x600 -P 49491 vboxserver<font class="Apple-style-span" face="Times"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal;"><strong>
</strong></span></font></pre>
<h4>5. Test run Fastprep</h4>
<p>When you are logged in your Windows virtual machine you can see that Windows has a mounted floppy drive <strong>A:</strong> and if you startup Command Prompt you can change directory to the floppy drive and run Fastprep:</p>
<pre>C:\\Users\\adminuser&gt; A:
A:\\&gt; FASTPREP.EXE vmname
</pre>
<p>On my Lab Oracle VDI server I had a problem in this step of the trouble-shooting process. I discovered the difference with a user with admin rights and an actual administrator in Windows 7. User Access Control (UAC) in Windows 7 prevented me to run the <strong>fastprep.exe</strong> program. I could change this behavior by changing elevation of user rights, but I took the easy way and decided to enable the actual Administrator in Windows 7.</p>
<p>I went back to my Windows template that I used as a source for the cloned images and I did the following in the Command Prompt of Windows 7:</p>
<pre>C:\\Users\\adminuser&gt; net user administrator /active:yes </pre>
<p>I also created a password for Administrator, halted the Windows 7 template, created a new revision in the VDI Manager and used this revision as the master for cloning in my pool. In the Fastprep specification I changed the Desktop Administrator property from adminuser to Administrator. After this change all my new clone operations in the pool did finish without errors.</p>
<p> </p>
</div>
<p> </p>
</div>
<p> </p>https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/entry/working_with_rdp_settings_inWorking with RDP settings in Oracle VDIJaap 2010-08-23T08:24:31+00:002010-08-23T15:24:31+00:00<div style="border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; background-color: #ffffff; ">
<p>The display protocol between <a href="http://wikis.sun.com/display/SunRay/Home">Sun Ray DTUs</a> (or the software application <a href="http://wikis.sun.com/display/OVDC2dot0/Home">Oracle Virtual Desktop Client</a>) and the Oracle VDI servers is ALP, the Appliance Link Protocol. ALP is a latency friendly protocol and very efficient in Wide Area Networks. Between the Oracle VDI servers and the Virtual Desktops, hosted on the virtualization infrastructure, the RDP protocol is used and implemented through the <a href="http://wikis.sun.com/display/SRWC2dot2/Home">Sun Ray Connector for Windows</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://wikis.sun.com/display/VDI/Home">Oracle VDI broker</a> uses standard RDP settings that you may change as an Oracle VDI administrator. This is done per pool configuration and available through the Oracle VDI GUI or via CLI-commands. In the below picture you see how to navigate in the Oracle VDI GUI to the pool settings: select <em>Pools</em> in the left column, select the Pool you want to customize (in my case <em>Windows XP Pool</em>) and select the tab <em>Settings</em>.</p>
<p><img border="1" src="/jaapr/resource/vdi/pool-settings.png" /> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>If you scroll down on the Pool Settings page you see the section for Sun Ray specific pool settings and the option to customize the settings for RDP.&nbsp;Pay attention to the order of selecting the options:</p>
<p> </p>
<ol>
<li>Select the hyperlink <em>Edit&nbsp;Sun Ray RDP Settings</em>&nbsp;and enable the desired settings in the page that displays, save the changes and go back to the Pool Settings page.</li>
<li>Select the checkbox <em>Use Customized Settings,</em></li>
<li><em>Save</em>&nbsp;the changes</li>
</ol>
<div>I have made multiple times the error to go directly to the <em>Edit </em>S<em>un Ray RDP Settings</em> after I selected the checkbox. If you don't save the change, and you come back from <em>Edit&nbsp;Sun Ray RDP Settings</em> page, the checkbox is not activated anymore.</div>
<p><img border="1" src="/jaapr/resource/vdi/rdp-settings.png" /> </p>
<p>In the case you have changed the Sun Ray RDP settings and the result is still different then what you were expecting, you can go to the Oracle VDI server command-line (via SSH or Putty) to do some trouble-shooting. As you may know already, the <a href="http://wikis.sun.com/display/SRWC2dot2/Home">RDP client for a Sun Ray session</a>&nbsp;is called <strong><a href="http://wikis.sun.com/display/SRWC2dot2/Solaris+Sun+Ray+User+Commands+-+man%281%29">uttsc</a><span style="font-weight: normal; ">&nbsp;in Solaris</span></strong>. The desired RDP settings that you configured in the GUI are passed as arguments through this <strong>uttsc</strong> process on the server.</p>
<p>A very nice tool in the trouble-shooting process is the Solaris <a href="http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/816-0210/6m6nb7mgm?a=view"><strong>pargs</strong></a> CLI-command, which gives you information about the arguments that are passed to a Solaris process (identified by a Process ID).</p>
<p>In my example (see below) I want to investigate the RDP settings for a Sun Ray user with userid <em>jaapr</em>. I have to find out to which server Jaap's Sun Ray session is connected (press the three audio-keys on a Sun keyboard), I connect to this server with SSH/Putty and with the process ID of the <strong>uttsc</strong> process (better to use <strong>uttsc-bin</strong> for this) I investigate the RDP settings:</p>
<pre>root@vdiserver:~# ps -ef|grep jaapr|grep uttsc-bin
utku5 <strong>28223</strong> 28204 0 17:42:11 ? 0:00 /opt/SUNWuttsc/lib/uttsc-bin -m -u jaapr ...
root@vdiserver:~# pargs <strong>28223</strong>
28223: /opt/SUNWuttsc/lib/uttsc-bin -m -u jaapr -S 5 -d SUNVDI -i -r usb:on -E wallpap
argv[0]: /opt/SUNWuttsc/lib/uttsc-bin
argv[1]: -m
argv[2]: -u
argv[3]: jaapr
argv[4]: -S
argv[5]: 5
argv[6]: -d
argv[7]: SUNVDI
argv[8]: -i
argv[9]: -r
argv[10]: usb
argv[11]: -E
argv[12]: wallpaper
argv[13]: -E
argv[14]: theming
argv[15]: 192.168.4.157
root@vdiserver:~#
</pre>
<p>And here you have the complete listing of the RDP settings that are used for a specific Desktop session in a selected VDI pool.</p>
</div>https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/entry/use_a_different_kiosk_sessionUse a different Kiosk session in Oracle VDIJaap 2010-08-19T05:35:54+00:002010-08-19T12:35:54+00:00<div style="border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; background-color: #ffffff; ">
<p>Today I was preparing a customer project on my test server to run a different application (then the default Oracle VDI desktop) on some special Sun Ray DTUs.&nbsp;In a recent post I wrote about configuring <a href="/jaapr/entry/opera_a_sun_ray_webkiosk">Opera as a Sun Ray Webkiosk browser</a>&nbsp;and this was the application we wanted to run on the special DTUs (for a reception area). In this article I explain how to configure this for the Webkiosk browser, but the scenario is the same for every application you have in mind for a kiosk session.</p>
<p>There are multiple ways to configure different kiosk applications in the Oracle VDI server environment:</p>
<ol>
<li>Write your own Kiosk Mode scripts. The <a href="/thinkthin/">Think Thin Blog</a> is a very good source to get your inspiration,</li>
<li>Use the <a href="/danielc/entry/meta_kiosk_how_to_run">Meta Kiosk add-on</a> developed by Daniel Cifuentes,</li>
<li>Use the standard Kiosk Mode interface as <a href="/joergb/entry/using_different_kiosk_sessions_for">described in Jörg's Desktop Blog</a>.</li>
</ol>
<div>
<p>I decided to use method three, it is a less known feature in the Sun Ray Server software (which is embedded in the Oracle VDI software), easy to configure via the CLI (unfortunately it is not yet integrated in the GUI) and you do not need to write a shell-script to control the multiple applications Kiosk Mode logic.</p>
<p>To refresh your mind from the <a href="/jaapr/entry/opera_a_sun_ray_webkiosk">earlier blog post about Opera</a>:&nbsp;you need to install the Opera web-browser on your Oracle VDI servers and you need to store the kiosk description file and launcher in the directory <em>/etc/opt/SUNWkio/sessions</em>. </p>
<p>When this is done you let the Oracle VDI server know that for a pre-determined number of Sun Ray DTUs you do not want to use the default (Oracle VDI) kiosk session, but the alternative Opera Webkiosk session (or any session that you have in mind as alternative). This is a three step process:</p>
<p>1. First you have to store the Opera browser kiosk session configuration in the Sun Ray server data store. You have to create a little configuration file and use this file to store the information in the data store. After this is done you check if it is stored together with the default <em>session</em> </p>
<pre> # I have created the WebkioskSession.conf with an editor.
root@vdiserver:# cat WebkioskSession.conf
KIOSK_SESSION=webkiosk
KIOSK_SESSION_TIMEOUT_DETACHED=12000
root@vdiserver:# utkiosk -i WebkioskSession -f WebkioskSession.conf
root@vdiserver:# utkiosk -l
session
WebkioskSession
root@vdiserver:#
</pre>
<p>2. Then you register the token of the device (e.g. <em>pseudo.00144f5787d1</em>) or the token of a smart-card. Adding a name to the registration is mandatory, I use&nbsp;<em>dummy01</em> as a not existing username.</p>
<pre> root@vdiserver:# utuser -a "pseudo.00144f5787d1,,,dummy01,"
root@vdiserver:#
</pre>
<p>3. In the last step you override the default kiosk configuration by the alternative and restart the session by killing the current session for that token.&nbsp;</p>
<pre> root@vdiserver:# utkioskoverride -r pseudo.00144f5787d1 -s kiosk -c WebkioskSession
root@vdiserver:# utsession -k -t pseudo.00144f5787d1
root@vdiserver:#
</pre>
<p>If you have multiple tokens (for example 20 Sun Ray DTUs in your reception area), then step two and three are very easy to script in a shell command or shell script. I let this to the user as this is out-of-scope for this article.</p>
</div>
</div>https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/entry/change_default_desktop_login_languageChange default Desktop Login Language in Oracle VDI 3.2Jaap 2010-08-11T13:02:30+00:002010-08-17T19:36:39+00:00<p>One of the new features in the <a href="/werkplek/entry/oracle_virtual_desktop_infrastructure_3">recently released Oracle VDI 3.2</a> software is the addition of the Dutch language in the Oracle VDI Desktop Login screen. In this article I explain how to change the default Desktop Login language to your preferred language (I use Dutch in the examples, because I live in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands">Netherlands</a> ;-)&nbsp;</p>
<p>As soon as you connect with your <a href="http://www.oracle.com/us/technologies/virtualization/061984.html">Sun Ray DTU</a> or <a href="http://wikis.sun.com/display/OVDC2dot0/Home">Oracle Virtual Desktop Client (OVDC)</a> to the Oracle VDI server you get the standard Desktop Login window. Most of the time, this window defaults to the English language (see the below picture). Through the &quot;<em>More Options, Language</em>&quot; drop-down menu you see a list of supported languages. With a few simple steps you can change&nbsp;the default language of the Desktop Login to your preferred language.</p>
<p><img src="/jaapr/resource/vdi/dlogin-en.png" alt="Oracle VDI Desktop Login Window in English Language" /></p>
<p>The Desktop Login window is launched by the Kiosk interface scripts. This is the glue between the embedded Sun Ray server software and the Oracle VDI broker software. The Kiosk interface scripts determines the language setting for the Desktop Login window through the underlying operating system. In our Solaris 10 Oracle VDI server this is done with the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locale" title="Wikipedia Locale">locale</a> parameters. </p>
<p>During the Solaris 10 Operating System installation, the English version of Solaris is installed by default. Most likely you only provided information about the timezone of your server and not the information for your geographic regions and software localizations.&nbsp;On the Sun Developers Network website&nbsp;you can check a list with locale settings in the <a href="http://developers.sun.com/dev/gadc/tools/lc/lc.jsp">Solaris Locale Chart</a>. To use the Dutch language in the Oracle VDI Desktop Login we need the <strong>nl_NL</strong> locale which is <a href="http://www.blastwave.org/docs/step-048.html">part of the Western European Region (WEU)</a>&nbsp;in Solaris 10.</p>
<p>Follow the next four steps to configure your preferred language for the Oracle VDI Desktop Login window:</p>
<p> </p>
<p> 1. Check the installed locales&nbsp;on your Oracle VDI server with the following CLI-commands:</p>
<pre> # First check the current locales on the server (in this case it is the default)
root@server:# locale -a
C
POSIX
iso_8859_1
root@server:#
# Or check if the Dutch locales are installed on your server
root@server:# locale -a | grep nl
nl
nl.ISO8859-15
nl_BE
nl_BE.ISO8859-1
nl_BE.ISO8859-15
nl_BE.ISO8859-15@euro
nl_BE.UTF-8
nl_NL
nl_NL.ISO8859-1
nl_NL.ISO8859-15
nl_NL.ISO8859-15@euro
nl_NL.UTF-8
root@server:#
</pre>
<p>2. If your locale exists go to step 3, otherwise load your preferred locale from the Solaris 10 installation media (the Solaris 10 installation DVD or the downloaded Solaris 10 iso-file):</p>
<pre> # Insert Solaris 10 DVD in your drive, it will be automounted under /cdrom
# In my example we install the nl_NL locale
root@server:# localeadm -a nl_NL -d /cdrom/sol_10_1009_x86/
...
...
root@server:#
# Use the following CLI-commands if you installed from an iso file
# Find your iso file (in my case /stage) and mount the iso into a directory /mnt
root@server:# mount -F hsfs -o ro `lofiadm -a /stage/sol-10-u8-ga-x86-dvd.iso` /mnt
root@server:# localeadm -a nl_NL -d /mnt
...
...
root@server:# umount /mnt; lofiadm -d /dev/lofi/1
root@server:#
</pre>
<p>3. Configure the locale in the Sun Ray Kiosk general properties settings:</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>Go to the Sun Ray sever Admin GUI (https://server:1661/) and login with root/passwd</li>
<li>Select Tab <i>Advanced</i>, sub-Tab <i>Kiosk Mode</i> and select <i>Edit</i> to change the properties for the<i> Oracle Virtual Desktop Infrastructure</i> session type.&nbsp;</li>
<li>In the <i>Locale</i> property configure your preferred locale as shown in the below picture and save&nbsp;the properties</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="/jaapr/resource/vdi/srss-gui-locale.png" alt="SRSS Admin GUI, Kiosk Mode properties" /></p>
<p><br />4. Restart your DTU session to show the new Desktop Login Language setting:</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>You can do this by selecting <i>Quit</i> in the Desktop Login window, or</li>
<li>You can do this with the key sequence <i>CTRL-ALT-BS-B</i>S.</li>
</ul>
<div>If all went well you will see the Oracle VDI Desktop Login window in your preferred language. The below picture shows the Desktop Login window for the Dutch language.</div>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="/jaapr/resource/vdi/dlogin-nl.png" alt="Oracle VDI Dutch Desktop Login window" /> </p>https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/entry/sun_vdi_3_2_releasedOracle VDI 3.2 ReleasedJaap 2010-08-11T10:39:05+00:002010-08-11T17:39:05+00:00<p>
Hot off the press: Oracle VDI 3.2 is released today. Some of the new features in Oracle Virtual Desktop Infrastructure 3.2 are:</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>Global hot-desking: to build multiple Oracle VDI clusters in different data-centers. This can be used for roaming of users over multiple locations (nation-wide or world-wide) or used in disaster recovery scenario's where users can be offered a guest-desktop in another data-center if there is a disaster in their home data-center.</li>
<li>Multi-company capabilities: this especially is useful for service-providers who want to offer a Virtual Desktop service to multiple customers where every customer is using its own (Active/LDAP) Directory.</li>
<li>For Windows (XP and 7) there is a Fast-preparation option instead of using the default Microsoft system prepartion. This is useful to speed-up your cloning process.</li>
<li>Oracle branding and download from the Oracle e-delivery website.</li>
</ul>
<div>
<p>See the following links for more information:</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/165180">Press announcement</a></li>
<li><a href="http://wikis.sun.com/display/VDI3dot2/Oracle+Virtual+Desktop+Infrastructure+3.2+Release+Notes">Release Notes</a></li>
<li><a href="http://edelivery.oracle.com/">Download Software</a>&nbsp;(Product Pack: Oracle Desktop Virtualization)</li>
</ul>
<p>Stay tuned for more updates on this new release !!</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
</div>
<p> </p>https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/entry/using_oracle_virtual_desktop_clientUsing Oracle Virtual Desktop Client with smart cardJaap 2010-07-19T05:59:10+00:002010-08-17T19:31:24+00:00<p>As you may have discovered, last week <a href="http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/150887">Oracle released updates</a> for Sun Ray software and the Oracle Virtual Desktop Client (OVDC) which are described in more detail on <a href="/ThinkThin/entry/srs_5_big_updates_disguised">the ThinkThin blog</a>. </p>
<p>I wanted to test OVDC with the new smart card functionality to hotdesk my Desktop session between a Sun Ray DTU and the OVDC.&nbsp;But I encountered a small issue when using the smart-card (in fact I was to lazy to read the Release Notes :-)</p>
<p>Before using OVDC you have to enable access for it on the server. This is done automatically if you use the Sun Ray server software as part of the full Oracle VDI stack. But you can also do this manually&nbsp;via the Sun Ray Admin GUI. However, for enabling OVDC access with a smart card this option is not available yet in the Admin GUI. Below I explain what I did in my demo-server infrastructure.</p>
<p>I connected with OVDC on my Windows XP notebook with integrated smart card reader to the patched Sun VDI server and I did get the standard Oracle/Sun VDI Desktop Login screen.&nbsp;When&nbsp;I inserted a smart card in my Windows XP notebook, it connected to the VDI server, but it did not get the Desktop Login screen. Instead, I did get a little icon with a status code <b>47</b> in the lower right.</p>
<p><img src="/jaapr/resource/vdi/no-vdc-47.png" alt="No OVDC Access Icon" /><br /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>On the Sun Ray Wiki you can find a page with <a href="http://wikis.sun.com/display/SRSS4dot2/SRSS+Troubleshooting+Icons">SRSS Troubleshooting Icons</a>, where I found that status code 47 means <em>No access for Sun Desktop Access Clients</em>. The <a href="http://wikis.sun.com/display/OVDC2dot0/Release+Notes+%28All+Topics%29">Release notes of OVDC</a> helped me to find out that I can <a href="http://wikis.sun.com/display/OVDC2dot0/Enabling+Access+for+OVDC">enable access for OVDC</a> smart card sessions with the <strong>utpolicy</strong> CLI-command and the switch <strong>-u</strong> to specify the policy for <strong>card</strong>, <strong>pseudo</strong> or <strong>both</strong>&nbsp;(resp. smart card session, non-smart card session and both types).</p>
<p>I logged into my Sun VDI (or standalone Sun Ray) server as the root user and I changed the Sun Ray server policy with the following commands:</p>
<pre># First check the current policy on the server
root@vdiserver:# /opt/SUNWut/sbin/utpolicy
# Current Policy:
-a -z both -k both -m -u pseudo
# Change the policy (-u both) to accept card and non-card OVDC sessions
root@vdiserver:# /opt/SUNWut/sbin/utpolicy -a -z both -k both -m -u both
# Restart authentication manager (needed for policy change)
root@vdiserver:# /opt/SUNWut/sbin/utrestart -c
root@vdiserver:# </pre>
<p>After the restart of the Sun Ray Server services and reconnecting OVDC to the server I could hotdesk my Virtual Desktop session between the Sun Ray DTU and the OVDC software client.</p>https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/entry/updates_for_sun_ray_softwareUpdates for Sun Ray SoftwareJaap 2010-07-15T14:00:06+00:002010-08-17T19:36:15+00:00A quick note about Sun Ray Software updates already posted in other blogs: my colleague <a href="http://twitter.com/arjantaal">Arjan</a> posted a blog about the <a href="/werkplek/entry/nieuwe_release_van_oracle_s">Oracle Sun Ray press announcement</a> and on the ThinkThin blog two articles (more technical/functional oriented) about the <a href="/ThinkThin/entry/srs_5_big_updates_disguised">updates in the Sun Ray Software</a> and a <a href="/ThinkThin/entry/pc_sc_lite_1_3">new version of PCSC-lite software</a>.https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/entry/solaris_for_sun_vdi_administrators1Solaris for Oracle VDI Administrators (2)Jaap 2010-07-15T03:14:44+00:002010-07-15T20:45:14+00:00<p>I continue with my articles about Solaris Administration for Oracle VDI Administrators, my <a href="/jaapr/entry/solaris_for_sun_vdi_administrators">first article</a> was about adding Solaris Freeware packages, this article is about installing patches.</p>
<p>If you have a valid support-contract for your server software, you are able to download patches from the&nbsp;<a href="http://sunsolve.sun.com/" title="SunSolve Website">sunsolve.sun.com</a>&nbsp;website. Sometimes (but not very often :-) there are patches released for Oracle VDI. </p>
<p>A good source to keep you up-to-date on Sun Ray and Oracle VDI patches is the <a href="http://www.sun-rays.org/">Sun Ray Users Group website</a>, where you can find <s>an </s><a href="http://www.sun-rays.org/srss.html"><s>overview of current and older versions of patches</s></a>&nbsp;(Edit: better to use the official Sun Ray Wiki page with an <a href="http://wikis.sun.com/display/SRS/Home#tab:Patches">overview of Sun Ray Software patches</a>).</p>
<p>Recently a patch for&nbsp;<a href="/ThinkThin/entry/sun_ray_3_plus_firmware">Sun Ray firmware</a>&nbsp;was released to support the new&nbsp;<a href="http://www.oracle.com/us/technologies/virtualization/061984.html">Sun Ray 3+ client</a>&nbsp;in the current Sun Ray server software.&nbsp;For example, to check if you already installed <s>that&nbsp;</s><a href="http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetkey=urn:cds:docid:1-21-140994-02-1"><s>140994-02</s></a><s>&nbsp;patch</s>&nbsp;(Edit: I just found out that there is a new revision of this patch: <a href="http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetkey=1-21-140994-03-1">140994-03</a>) on your x86 Oracle VDI server, you can execute the followng CLI-commands on your Oracle VDI or Sun Ray server:</p>
<pre># To show patch versions of all the patches on your server
root@vdiserver:# showrev -p
# Check if a specific patch have been applied to a system, e.g. 140994
# There is no result when the patch is NOT applied, otherwise
root@vdiserver:# showrev -p | grep 140994&nbsp;
# To check which Sun Ray Server specific patches are installed on your
# server (output is a list with the installed patches)
root@vdiserver:# /opt/SUNWut/lib/utspatches</pre>
<p>I'm not going to tell how to patch the server, this information is provided in the README file of the patch description. Most likely before and after applying a patch with the&nbsp;<em><strong>patchadd</strong></em>&nbsp;CLI-command, you have to do some additional instructions.</p>https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/entry/solaris_for_sun_vdi_administratorsSolaris for Oracle VDI Administrators (1)Jaap 2010-06-25T09:06:35+00:002010-06-25T16:06:35+00:00<p>The core component of the Oracle VDI solution is the <a href="http://wikis.sun.com/display/VDI3dot1/Architecture" title="Sun VDI Architecture">Oracle VDI broker/session manager</a>&nbsp;which you deploy in your session management layer of your Virtual Desktop infrastructure. It is an integrated stack of software components with a single installer which you install on a Solaris server: one server if you want to demo or evaluate the software or in a cluster of servers for production use. </p>
<p>After initial installation and configuration the server behaves like an appliance, you administer the Oracle VDI platform through the web-interface. Also the Sun Ray server component is managed through the web-interface.</p>
<p>Although you do not need to be a Solaris expert (most VDI platforms are managed by administrators from the Windows domain) to manage a Oracle VDI broker/session manager server, some Solaris command line knowledge is a value add in managing the Oracle VDI platform. </p>
<p>I&nbsp;hope to write some articles in the future about common Solaris SysAdmin jobs that could be used in the daily life of Oracle VDI Administrator.&nbsp;In this post I like to show some commands that you use when you add additional software packages to your Solaris Server. I do not present the output of the CLI-commands, you are encouraged to execute the below instructions on your Solaris Oracle VDI server to understand the output.</p>
<h4>Pkgadd:&nbsp;</h4>
<p>Usually when I have installed a Solaris server, I add additional packages from the public domain that I have downloaded from <a href="http://sunfreeware.com/indexintel10.html" title="Freeware for Solaris">Sunfreeware.com</a>, the Freeware for Solaris package repository. An example of such a package is <a href="http://sunfreeware.com/programlistintel10.html#rdesktop" title="rdesktop download link">rdesktop</a>, the X-windows client for Windows terminal servers. You may think why should I install this package (Oracle VDI has its own <em><strong>uttsc</strong></em> RDP-connector), but I explain that later.</p>
<p> </p>
<pre># Decompress the downloaded package
root@vdiserver:# gunzip rdesktop-1.5.0-sol10-x86-local.gz
# Install and transfer the software package to the system
root@vdiserver:# pkgadd -d rdesktop-1.5.0-sol10-x86-local
# Check software package installation accuracy (before you add to the system)
root@vdiserver:# pkgchk -d rdesktop-1.5.0-sol10-x86-local
# Check if software package is already installed
root@vdiserver:# grep rdesktop /var/sadm/install/contents
# Or check if software package is already installed with pkginfo
root@vdiserver:# pkginfo | grep rdesktop</pre>
<p>If you do install this rdesktop package on your server, do not forget to install the dependency packages as described on the <a href="http://sunfreeware.com/programlistintel10.html#rdesktop">Sunfreeware.com</a> website.</p>
<h4>Sample rdesktop use-cases:&nbsp;</h4>
<p>As you may know, the <em><strong>uttsc</strong></em> RDP-connector in the Oracle VDI server (or the stand-alone Sun Ray server software) only displays on a Sun Ray client. It does not work when it is executed from the console of the server or via a remote SSH session. For this purpose I use the <em><strong>rdesktop</strong></em> RDP-connector. </p>
<p>Consider you are working on a Apple or Linux notebook (or your Windows desktop with a local X-display) and you want to test the RDP connection from a remote Oracle VDI server to a Windows system (might be Windows XP virtual machine or Windows 2003 Terminal server) then these are the commands that you can use:</p>
<pre># Connect with RDP from VDI server to a Windows Terminal server
jaap@notebook:# ssh -X root@vdiserver /usr/local/bin/rdesktop <i>ip-address-wts</i>
# Assume you know Virtual Desktop VM IP-address via Oracle VDI
# web-interface, connect with RDP from VDI server to a VM
jaap@notebook:# ssh -X root@vdiserver /usr/local/bin/rdesktop <i>ip-address-vm</i>
# This is cool: use the VDI server's RDP broker to test a Virtual Desktop VM
# of an assigned user
# Warning: passwd may be visible on vdiserver when tools like "ps" are used.
jaap@notebook:# ssh -X root@vdiserver /usr/local/bin/rdesktop \\
-u <i>username</i> -p <i>passwd ip-address-vdiserver</i>
# Same use-case, but you hide the passwd and have to enter the windows passwd
# after you have entered the SSH passwd
jaap@notebook:# ssh -X root@vdiserver /usr/local/bin/rdesktop \\
-u <i>username</i> -p <i>- ip-address-vdiserve</i>r
</pre>
<p>That's it for now, please let me know if you have specific wishes for this series of articles. Or let me know what CLI-commands you are struggling with as a Oracle VDI administrator. &nbsp;</p>https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/entry/changed_admin_password_in_sunvdiChanging VMware Desktop provider password in Oracle VDIJaap 2010-06-15T07:52:07+00:002010-08-17T19:35:31+00:00<p>During a Virtual Desktop deployment project there are always multiple groups in the organization that are responsible for parts of the architecture. This is the challenge for the project manager and the lead architect of the project: make sure these groups work together and streamline the communication and architectural decisions.</p>
<p>In one of our projects where we worked with the Oracle VDI software and Windows XP virtual desktops running in a VMware vSphere virtualization back-end we had a little issue that was caused by a lack of communication between the SysAdmins (in this case between the VMware SysAdmins and the Oracle VDI Admins, who were not in the same group).</p>
<p>As you may know the Oracle VDI session broker is assigning and connecting end-users to virtual desktops. When a user logs in to the desktop client, Oracle VDI requests a virtual desktop IP-address of the assigned user from the VMware vCenter server. When vCenter returns the IP-address, Oracle VDI establishes a session between the user's desktop client and the virtual desktop.</p>
<p>Back to our project. During a system maintenance window in the non-office hours, the Oracle VDI cluster was rebooted. When the system came back online again, the end-users couldn't login anymore into their virtual desktops. After some trouble-shooting we found out the connection between the Oracle VDI cluster and the VMware vCenter server failed (see the example screen-shot of the Oracle VDI GUI):</p>
<p><img alt="VMware DP unresponsive" src="/jaapr/resource/vdi/pwd-dp-screen1.png" /> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>The reason the status was reported as <i>Unresponsive</i>&nbsp;had to do with a changed Administrator password in the Windows 2003 server where the vCenter software was running. The password change was implemented by the VMware vCenter Administrator several weeks before this issue happened, but it did not impact the connection between vCenter and Oracle VDI at that time.</p>
<p>Oracle VDI takes advantage of the web services API provided by the VMware Infrastructure SDK to communicate through HTTPS with VMware vCenter. When you setup a connection between the two components you have to verify that the servers are able to communicate:&nbsp;</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>verify that the VMware vCenter Webaccess component is installed and configured.</li>
<li>verify that Port 443 (HTTPS) is enabled in any firewall that may be active on the vCenter server system.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p><img align="left" alt="VMware Desktop Provider configuration" src="/jaapr/resource/vdi/pwd-dp-screen2.png" />During configuration of the VMware Desktop Provider in the Oracle VDI GUI you specify the server properties and the administrator credentials of the vCenter server as shown in the left image.</p>
<p>At this time Oracle VDI opens a HTTPS connection to the VMware vCenter server for the first time (this <i>open connection</i> also happens during an Oracle VDI service startup after reboot).</p>
<p>This connection is cached and re-used as long as possible.&nbsp;In Oracle VDI there is a system thread that periodically checks if the connection is still usable. If it's not usable it tries to reestablish a new one. </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<div>One side effect of this checking is that the connection is typically kept alive for a long time. This is most likely what happened in our environment.&nbsp;</div>
<p> </p>
<p>The issue was solved when we updated the password of the VMware Desktop Provider settings in the Oracle VDI broker. This is done by the CLI-command vda and <i>VMware DP</i> as the name of my provider:</p>
<pre>root@vdiserver:~# vda provider-vc-setprops --properties=password-prompt "VMware DP"
Enter password for host vc.sunvdi.local: XXXXXXXX
Updated Provider Settings
root@vdiserver:~#
</pre>
<p>When the password was changed, Oracle VDI reported Status OK in the&nbsp;VMware vCenter Desktop Provider Summary overview and since that change all the end-users could connect again to their assigned desktops.</p>
<p>I leave it up to the imagination of the reader to conclude the moral of the story :-)</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/entry/sun_ray_sysadmin_in_sunSysAdmin access in Oracle VDIJaap 2010-06-08T06:23:15+00:002010-08-17T19:34:50+00:00<p>The <a href="https://cds.sun.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/WFS/CDS-CDS_SMI-Site/en_US/-/USD/ViewProductDetail-Start?ProductRef=SunVDI-3.1.1-SP-G-F@CDS-CDS_SMI">Oracle VDI server software</a> is an integrated stack with a single installer. It installs&nbsp;several components&nbsp;in the Solaris server system such as the vdi-core, the embedded cluster database, the rdp-broker and last but not least, the Sun Ray server software.</p>
<p><img src="/jaapr/resource/vdi/desktop-login.png" alt="Oracle VDI Desktop Login screen" align="left" />After the installation and configuration of your Oracle VDI cluster, the Sun Ray server software is by default configured in kiosk mode policy with Oracle VDI as the standard application. When you connect a Sun Ray DTU device to the network it always displays the standard Desktop Login screen as shown on the left, both for smartcard or non-smartcard access. </p>
<p>When you enter your user credentials you are connected to your assigned virtual desktop. Wherever you are, wherever you go, you are always connected to your own desktop. This is perfect for the end-user, but the System Administrator always has more wishes to connect to the IT-system.<br /></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>The SysAdmin responsible for the Oracle VDI cluster manages the infrastructure of the virtual desktop platform with the <a href="http://wikis.sun.com/display/VDI3dot1/VDI+3.1.1+Software+Requirements">web-based Oracle VDI GUI</a>. With the GUI the SysAdmin manages the following components:</p>
<ul>
<li>the connection to the user-directory (such as the Active Directory),</li>
<li>the connection to the virtualization platforms (Virtual Box or VMware) and the storage infrastructure,<br /></li>
<li>the assignment of users to desktops,</li>
<li>the pools where the virtual desktops resides on the platform.</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="/jaapr/resource/vdi/webadminGUI.png" alt="Oracle VDI Web-admin GUI" align="middle" /> </p>
<p>For the more advanced features the SysAdmin has the possibility to access the underlying Solaris system and use <a href="http://wikis.sun.com/display/VDI3dot1/Man+Pages">CLI-command</a>s or inspect log-files. Most likely, the SysAdmin desktop device or laptop is connected to a management network and he logs into the Oracle VDI server using the SSH-protocol.</p>
<p>I always find it useful to add another access mechanism for the SysAdmin. This is typically needed when you want to support the end-user at his desk in his office and want fast access to the Oracle VDI server to troubleshoot for example. I configure a smart-card which offers me a regular Solaris desktop on the Oracle VDI server (note: this is unsupported for end-users in the VDI model, but IMHO fine for limited use for SysAdmins).</p>
<p>Configuring the smart-card for Solaris access is very easy to do, a few CLI- commands on the Oracle VDI server while your smart-card is inserted in the Sun Ray DTU. First you discover your smart-card tokenID with <font face="'courier new', courier, monospace"><i>utsession -l</i></font> (in my case it is&nbsp;<font face="'courier new', courier, monospace">MicroPayflex.500406f700130100</font>), you register the smart-card with <font face="'courier new', courier, monospace"><i>utuser -a</i></font>&nbsp;in the Sun Ray server data-store and then you override the standard smart-card policy with <font face="'courier new', courier, monospace"><i>utkioskoverride -s regular</i></font> for this smart-card tokenID:</p>
<pre> # utsession -l
Configuration for token ID 'MicroPayflex.500406f700130100':
encryptUpType=ARCFOU
encryptDownType=ARCFOUR
authenticateUpType=DSA
authenticateDownType=simple
securityMode=hard
clientAuthenticationMode=soft
clientKeyStatus=unconfirmed
clientKeyID=5f368b597f32fd5944229e5a676add14
terminalCIDs=IEEE802.0021281506de
# utuser -a "MicroPayflex.500406f700130100,,,jaap,"
Added one user.
# utkioskoverride -s regular -r MicroPayflex.500406f700130100
The session type has been successfully changed. Please note that changes
will only take effect the next time a session is started for the specified
token
# utsession -t MicroPayflex.500406f700130100 -k
#
</pre>
<p>The last CLI-command <font face="'courier new', courier, monospace"><i>utsession</i></font> kills your current Sun Ray session (the one with the Oracle VDI Desktop Login screen) and returns with a regular Solaris Desktop login as shown in the picture below.</p>
<p><img src="/jaapr/resource/vdi/desktop-solaris.png" alt="Solaris Desktop Login screen" align="middle" /> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>The <font face="'courier new', courier, monospace"><i>utkioskoverride</i></font> is a very powerful CLI-command. One of the Sun Ray engineers has written a nice blog about&nbsp;<a href="/joergb/entry/using_different_kiosk_sessions_for">Using different Kiosk Sessions for different tokens</a>. Recommended to read if you need some more flexibility in Kiosk configuration settings.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/entry/opera_a_sun_ray_webkioskOpera: a Sun Ray Webkiosk browserJaap 2010-06-02T01:15:49+00:002010-08-17T19:33:46+00:00<p>In one of my recent projects I had to install Sun Ray DTU devices in a reception area of an office building. The requirement was to use the Sun Ray as an information stand:</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>Deny access to the Desktop operating system, but provide Web browsing</li>
<li>Reset after periods of inactivity</li>
</ul>
<p> I decided to give it a try with the <a href="http://www.opera.com/">Opera web browser</a>&nbsp;which runs both on Solaris and Linux systems.&nbsp;My example installation is on Oracle Enterprise Linux, but it is also tested on Solaris x86.</p>
<p>Opera is a web browser with increasing popularity and runs on multiple platforms. Opera has some nice <a href="http://www.opera.com/support/mastering/kiosk/">kiosk mode features</a> such as:</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>Start-up dialogs are not shown</li>
<li>Full-screen mode is enabled by default, you can't escape from it</li>
<li>Toolbars and application bar are disabled</li>
<li>URL Filtering</li>
</ul>
<p>Before I start configuring and customizing Opera for Sun Ray I did the following standard installation steps:</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.opera.com/download/">Download</a>&nbsp;and install Opera on my Sun Ray server</li>
<li>Configure Flash, Java and Acroread plugins (follow the instructions on <a href="http://www.opera.com/docs/linux/plugins/install">this webpage</a>)</li>
</ul>
<p>My next step is to perform some Opera configuration settings. I will do this as a standard Linux user (I did it as the root user) by launching the Opera browser. When launched for the first time Opera will create a <font face="'courier new', courier, monospace">$HOME/.opera</font> configuration directory.</p>
<p>Opera has a Preferences Editor which you access via entering the <strong>opera:config</strong> URL. I used the following two configurations settings to adjust my Kiosk Mode preferences:</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li><em>&quot;Go Home Time Out&quot;</em>: which is found under the <em>Special</em> section. This setting is used for resetting the kiosk after a certain period of inactivity in seconds. I used a setting of 600 (which is 10 minutes).</li>
<li><em>&quot;URL Filter File&quot;</em>: which is found under the <em>Network</em> section. Here you can choose your file path (or use the default setting <font face="'courier new', courier, monospace">$HOME/.opera/urlfilter.ini</font>) where you store your URL filter rules.</li>
<li>I also changed the default home page, in my case I changed it to <a href="http://www.oracle.com/">http://www.oracle.com/</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p>After exiting the Opera web browser, I created the URL filter rules in the default URL Filter File:</p>
<blockquote class="webkit-indent-blockquote" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 40px; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre; "># vi $HOME/.opera/urlfilter.ini</span><br /><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre; "> [prefs]</span><br /><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre; ">&nbsp;&nbsp; prioritize excludelist=1</span><br /><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre; "> [include]</span><br /><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre; ">&nbsp;&nbsp; http://\*/\*</span><br /><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre; ">&nbsp;&nbsp; https://\*/\*</span><br /><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre; "> [exclude]</span><br /><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre; ">&nbsp;&nbsp; ftp://\*.bmp</span><br /><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre; ">&nbsp;&nbsp; ftp://\*.gif</span><br /><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre; ">&nbsp;&nbsp; ftp://\*.jpg</span><br /><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre; ">&nbsp;&nbsp; ftp://\*.jpeg</span><br /><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre; ">&nbsp;&nbsp; ftp://\*.png</span><br /><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre; "> #&nbsp;</span></blockquote>
<p>See the <a href="http://www.opera.com/support/mastering/kiosk/">Opera Kiosk Mode webpage</a> for the explanation of the URL Filter File. I used these settings to allow http(s) URLs only. With these URL filters I also disallow the <font>file://localhost/\*</font> URLs to prevent viewing local files from the Sun Ray Software server.</p>
<p>At this time, my Opera configuration is ready for Sun Ray kiosk mode. I copied the configuration files to the default kiosk mode prototypes directory on all my Sun Ray servers in the Server Group. The Sun Ray kiosk mode module takes care of copying the profile to the right place in the server system when a user accesses the Sun Ray and his Opera kiosk session</p>
<blockquote class="webkit-indent-blockquote" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 40px; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre; "> # cd $HOME</span><br /><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre; "> # cp -r .opera /etc/opt/SUNWkio/prototypes/default/</span><br /><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre; "> #</span></blockquote>
<p>The last step in my configuration is to tell the Sun Ray server how to start the Opera browser in kiosk mode. You do this by creating a kiosk descriptor file and a kiosk session executable. The descriptor will be detected in the Sun Ray server Admin GUI where you enable the service. In the below steps you see the kiosk files I used in my server.</p>
<blockquote class="webkit-indent-blockquote" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 40px; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">
<p>1. create the Sun Ray kiosk descriptor&nbsp;</p>
<pre> # vi /etc/opt/SUNWkio/sessions/webkiosk.conf
KIOSK_SESSION_EXEC=$KIOSK_SESSION_DIR/opera-kiosk.sh
KIOSK_SESSION_LABEL="Webbrowser Kiosk Mode"
KIOSK_SESSION_DESCRIPTION="Webbrowser (Opera) in limited Kiosk Mode to provide I
nternet Web services to Sun Ray Kiosk Users"</pre>
<p>2. create the session execution script</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="webkit-indent-blockquote" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 40px; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">
<pre> # mkdir /etc/opt/SUNWkio/sessions/webkiosk
# vi /etc/opt/SUNWkio/sessions/webkiosk/opera-kiosk.sh
#!/bin/sh
# Set sleep and blanking timeouts to 0
# Uncomment if on Solaris
#/usr/openwin/bin/xset -dpms s off
#OPERA_EXEC=/usr/local/bin/opera
# Uncomment if on Linux
/usr/bin/xset -dpms s off
OPERA_EXEC=/usr/bin/opera
$OPERA_EXEC -kioskmode -kioskbuttons -nosave -noprint \\
-nochangebuttons -nocontextmenu -nodownload \\
-nokeys -nomail -nomaillinks -nomenu
</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>Again, see&nbsp;the <a href="http://www.opera.com/support/mastering/kiosk/">Opera Kiosk Mode website</a>&nbsp;for the explanation of the Opera switches. With these switches you still see the main toolbar and address bar. Some of the buttons (such as the print button) are greyed-out. If you want to disable the address bar and toolbar you remove the <font face="'courier new', courier, monospace">-kioskbuttons</font> switch, then you only see the viewed web-page.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/entry/sun_ray_3_firmware_availableSun Ray 3 Firmware availableJaap 2010-05-31T00:48:21+00:002010-08-17T19:33:10+00:00<p>A quick note: as posted on the <a href="/ThinkThin/entry/sun_ray_3_plus_firmware">Think Thin blog</a>,&nbsp;Sun Ray Core Services Patch -02 for SRSS 4.2 is available for download from <a href="http://sunsolve.sun.com/">sunsolve.sun.com</a>.</p>
<p> </p>https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/entry/install_sun_ray_server_softwareInstall Sun Ray Server software in Oracle Enterprise LinuxJaap 2010-05-28T09:23:37+00:002010-08-17T19:32:23+00:00<p>In this article I continue my installation of Oracle Enterprise Linux from an <a href="/jaapr/entry/sun_ray_server_on_oracle">earlier blog post</a>. The below instructions are based on an internal Wiki article written by a <a href="/joergb/">Sun colleague</a> (thanks for the pre-work).&nbsp;</p>
<div>
<h3>Prepare Oracle Enterprise Linux for Sun Ray Server software&nbsp;</h3>
<div>
<p>I'm now ready to install the Sun Ray Sever software.&nbsp;After you logged in for the first time as the root user in your just installed Oracle Enterprise Linux server, you have to prepare the system for Sun Ray Server software installation: add additional packages and change some Linux configuration files.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p>In Oracle Enterprise Linux <strong>yum</strong> is used to install additional packages. Reconfigure <strong>yum</strong> to run from the&nbsp;DVD repository. This is done&nbsp;by adding the following contents to a new file (Note that the mediaid comes from the file&nbsp;<em>/media/Enterprise Linux dvd 20090908/.discinfo</em>):</p>
</div>
<pre> # vi /etc/yum.repos.d/dvd.repo
[dvd]
mediaid=1252451316.580231
name=DVD for RHEL5
baseurl=file:///media/Enterprise%20Linux%20dvd%2020090908/Server
enabled=1
gpgcheck=0</pre>
</div>
<p>Oracle also hosts a <a href="http://public-yum.oracle.com/">yum-server</a> for Oracle Enterprise Linux, this also should work but I have not tested this.&nbsp;</p>
<div>
<p>You are now ready&nbsp;to install additional packages or groups of packages.&nbsp;The package list and versions which must be installed prior to Sun Ray Server installation are:</p>
</div>
<div>
<pre> # yum groupinstall "Development Tools"
# yum install glib-1.2.10
# yum install dhcp-3.0.5
# yum install openldap-clients-2.3.43
# yum install libXp-1.0.0
# yum install openmotif22-2.2.3</pre>
</div>
<div>Also the <font face="'courier new', courier, monospace">/etc/hosts</font> file need some changes: the&nbsp;hostname must be removed from 127.0.0.1 address and the host&nbsp;primary IP address and hostname must be added. The result must be something similar to:</div>
<div>
<pre> # vi /etc/hosts
# Do not remove the following line, or various programs
# that require network functionality will fail.
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost
::1 localhost6.localdomain6 localhost6
192.168.100.39 host19.sunvdi.local host19<pre></pre></pre>
</div>
<div>
<p>This finished the preparation on Oracle Enterprise Linux, we are now ready to install Sun Ray Server software.</p>
<h3>Install Sun Ray Software</h3>
<p>For download instructions for the Sun Ray Server software I refer to the <a href="http://wikis.sun.com/display/SRS/Home">Sun Ray Wiki</a> website. After downloading the the Sun Ray Server software for Linux zip-files in my staging directory I start the installation:</p>
<pre> # cd /stage/sunray
# unzip srss_4.2_linux.zip
</pre>
<h4>Check Java version</h4>
<p>Sun Ray Server software 4.2 requires a 32-bit implementation of a Java(TM) 2 Platform, Standard Edition JRE(TM) of at least 1.6. The latest Java release is available at <a href="http://java.sun.com/j2se">http://java.sun.com/j2se</a>.&nbsp;To check what JRE version is installed on your system, use the following command:</p>
<pre> # java -version</pre>
<p>JRE version 1.6 is also bundled on the Sun Ray Server software zip-file in the Supplemental directory. For my test installation&nbsp;I used the provided JRE in the Supplemental Directory:</p>
<pre> # cd /stage/sunray/srss_4.2/Supplemental/Java_Runtime_Environment/Linux/
# sh ./jre-6u13-linux-i586.bin
&lt;enter yes when prompted&gt;
# mv jre1.6.0_13 /opt</pre>
<h4><font face="'times new roman', times, serif">Install Tomcat</font></h4>
<p>The Sun Ray Administration Tool (Admin GUI) requires that a Web server be installed and running on each Sun Ray server. The Admin GUI is hosted in a Apache Tomcat 5.5 Web container. For my test installation&nbsp;I used the provided Apache Tomcat in the Supplemental Directory:</p>
<pre> # cd /stage/sunray/srss_4.2/Supplemental/Apache_Tomcat/
# gunzip apache-tomcat-5.5.20.tar.gz
# gtar xvf apache-tomcat-5.5.20.tar
# mv apache-tomcat-5.5.20 /opt
# ln -s /opt/apache-tomcat-5.5.20 /opt/apache-tomcat</pre>
<h4>Install Sun Ray Server software</h4>
<p>Installing Sun Ray Server software is nothing more then an install CLI-command and a reboot of the server:&nbsp;</p>
<p> </p>
<pre> # cd /stage/sunray/srss_4.2
# ./utinstall
- read and accept the license
- answer Y or N when prompted for French, Japanese, Chinese Admin GUI.
- enter Java v1.6 (or later) location: /opt/jre1.6.0_13
- continue installation with the selected packages
# reboot
</pre>
<p> </p>
<p>Before you reboot make sure you have unmounted the OEL installation DVD, it might&nbsp;be used as the primary boot device during the reboot.</p>
<h4>Configure Sun Ray Server software</h4>Sun Ray Server software installed, time to configure the software. This is done by a CLI-command and works straight-forward. Most of the defaults are OK, but here is what I used for my test server:
<p> </p>
<pre> # /opt/SUNWut/sbin/utconfig
- Continue ([y]/n)? Y
- Enter Sun Ray admin password:
- Configure Sun Ray Web Administration? ([y]/n)?
- Enter Apache Tomcat installation directory [/opt/apache-tomcat]:
- Enter HTTP port number [1660]:
- Enable secure connections? ([y]/n)?
- Enter HTTPS port number [1661]:
- Enter Tomcat process username [utwww]:
- Be sure to enable "remote administration" (non-default)
Enable remote server administration? (y/[n])? y
- Be sure to configure "Kiosk Mode" (non default)
Configure Sun Ray Kiosk Mode? (y/[n])? y
- Enter user prefix [utku]:
- Enter group [utkiosk]:
- Enter userID range start [150000]:
- Enter number of users [25]:
- Configure this server for a failover group? (y/[n])?
It lists a summary and if you happy with it choose yes to continue
the configuration.
- Continue ([y]/n)? y
</pre>
<p> </p>
<p>Configuration of Sun Ray Server Software has completed.</p>
<h4>Turn on Sun Ray Server services</h4>
<p>Sun Ray Server has multiple network configuration options to start the services. I used the easy one which turns on the services on all ethernet-interfaces on the server and does not configure DHCP services:</p>
<p> </p>
<pre> # /opt/SUNWut/sbin/utadm -L on
# /opt/SUNWut/sbin/utrestart -c
</pre>
<p>At this time, you are ready to connect a Sun Ray to this server.</p>
<h4>&nbsp;Linux Firewall</h4>
<p>If you did forget to turn off the Linux Firewall during installation, you can do that afterwards via the following CLI commands as the root user:</p>
<pre> # service iptables save
# service iptables stop
# chkconfig iptables off
</pre>
<p>If the Firewall keeps running on the server, the Sun Ray device will not connect to the servers and you will see a 26B OSD message on your Sun Ray device.</p>
<h4>Install Sun Ray Windows Connector on OEL</h4>
<p>Installation of the RDP connector is straightforward. I only had one minor issue with a missing library-filename on OEL during the installation, when I found the other version of that library it worked without problems. Here is what I used on my test system:</p>
<pre> # cd /stage/sunray
# groupadd srwc
# unzip srwc_2.2_linux.zip
# cd srwc_2.2
# ./installer
Accept (Y/N):
Enter "srwc" as group name
# /opt/SUNWuttsc/sbin/uttscadm -c
Enter complete location for libcrypto.so.0.9.7 [/lib/libcrypto.so.0.9.7a] :
/lib/libcrypto.so.0.9.8e
# /opt/SUNWut/sbin/utrestart -c
</pre>
<p>OK, that's it !!&nbsp;</p>
</div>https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/entry/sun_ray_server_on_oracleInstall Oracle Enterprise Linux in Oracle Virtual Box VMJaap 2010-05-28T09:07:41+00:002010-05-28T16:50:32+00:00<p>Recently I was involved in a project where Linux was the operating system for the Sun Ray server. Most of the projects I did in the past were based on Solaris servers and for my own learning experiences I wanted to to setup Sun Ray software on a recent Linux server distribution. Out of curiosity I decided to use Oracle Enterprise Linux, which is a fully compatible Red Hat version and one of the supported Sun Ray server platforms.</p>
<p>This article describes my installation and configuration notes to install Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.4 on a Virtual Box VM. I describe the following steps:</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>Configure a Virtual Box VM for Oracle Enterprise Linux</li>
<li>Installation of Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.4 for Sun Ray Server</li>
</ul>In a <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/jaapr/entry/install_sun_ray_server_software">follow-up article</a> I describe the Sun Ray specific installation and configuration steps:<br />
<ul>
<li>Prepare Oracle Enterprise Linux for Sun Ray Server software</li>
<li>Install and Configure Sun Ray Server software&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
<h3>Configure the Virtual Box VM for Oracle Enterprise Linux</h3>
<p>If you do not know Virtual Box, you might have a look at the <a href="http://virtualbox.org/" title="Wirtual Box Website">Virtual Box website</a> and download the software. After I launched the Virtual Box GUI on my Apple Mac OSX notebook I performed the following steps:</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>Select &quot;New&quot; to create a new virtual machine,</li>
<li>After I entered the name of the VM (I used oel-5u4-srss), I choose Linux as Operating Systems Type and Red Hat as the version. In my case I used the 32-bit version, but 64-bit is also reported to work. See the below screenshot:</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<blockquote class="webkit-indent-blockquote" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 40px; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><img src="/jaapr/resource/oel-srss/Picture2.png" align="middle" /></blockquote>
<ul>
<li>I choose 1024 MB for the Base Memory size,</li>
<li>In the Virtual Hard Disk window I used the default settings: enable Boot Hard Disk&nbsp;and enable Create new hard disk,</li>
<li>In the Virtual Hard Disk configuration wizard, I used&nbsp;Dynamically enabled storage with a&nbsp;Maximum size of the disk of 20 GB. See the below screenshot:</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<blockquote class="webkit-indent-blockquote" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 40px; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><img src="/jaapr/resource/oel-srss/Picture6.png" /></blockquote>
<ul>
<li>Finish the configuration wizard and your new VM will be created.</li>
</ul>
<div>
<div>
<p>Before starting the VM, we have to do some additional VM configuration settings in order to install Oracle Enterprise Linux as a server:</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>In the Virtual Box GUI select your just created VM and select the Details option in the right part of the window,</li>
<li>Scroll down to the Network settings. By default, the Network adapter is created in NAT configuration. This is OK for client machines, but we want to use our VM as a server, so we have to change this into the Bridged adapter,</li>
<li>Select Network in the Details section and change the Attached to: from NAT to Bridged Adapter.</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<blockquote class="webkit-indent-blockquote" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 40px; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><img src="/jaapr/resource/oel-srss/Picture8.png" align="middle" /></blockquote>
<div>
<div>
<p> </p>
</div>
<div>
<p>On my Apple notebook, I downloaded the DVD iso file from the Oracle website:</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>I downloaded OEL 5.4 for i386, the 32-bit version from&nbsp;<a href="http://edelivery.oracle.com/linux">http://edelivery.oracle.com/linux</a>,</li>
<li>Before the download start you have to read and agree to the terms &amp; conditions.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
</div>
<div>
<p>In the Virtual Box GUI, I continue in the&nbsp;Details section to attach the downloaded iso file to the VM as CD-ROM:</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>Select Storage and&nbsp;below IDE Controller select the CD-ROM icon (which is listed as empty),</li>
<li>In the right-hand side of the window select the &quot;Open Media Manager&quot; icon at the CD/DVD Device to mount your downloaded iso file as installation media.</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<blockquote class="webkit-indent-blockquote" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 40px; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><img src="/jaapr/resource/oel-srss/Picture9.png" align="middle" /></blockquote>
<div>
<div>
<p> The Virtual Machine is now ready for installation of Oracle Enterprise Linux.</p>
<h3>Installation of Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.4 for Sun Ray Server</h3>
<p>Now it is time to start the just created VM. It automatically boots from the ISO file and you see&nbsp;the Oracle Enterprise Linux boot screen. Make sure you install in graphical mode (the default). I followed a standard installation and used a lot of default settings in the installation wizard, except the configuration for network address and hostname:</p>
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>In the Network Devices window I changed the configuration of&nbsp;the ethernet device from DHCP to Manual IP,</li>
<li>I entered a static IP address and netmask,</li>
<li>I also disabled IPv6,</li>
<li>I configured a hostname and the settings for gateway and DNS.</li>
</ul>When the installation wizard is finished it starts to install the packages, after some time the installation is ready and it reboots the VM.&nbsp;After the reboot you will see the Oracle Enterprise Welcome screen on the VM console and you have to finish with post-installation settings. These are the one I used in my test server:&nbsp;
<p> </p>
<ul>
<li>Disable Firewall</li>
<li>Disabled SELinux Setting</li>
<li>Kdump (which I ignored) and Date/Time setting</li>
<li>Created a new user</li>
<li>Sound Card (ignored)</li>
<li>Additional CDs (ignored)</li>
</ul>
<p>Reboot to finalize the settings and when the system comes back you are ready to prepare the&nbsp;Sun Ray server installation. This will be described in a follow-up article.</p>
<p> </p>
<div>
<h3><br /></h3>
</div>
<div>
<p> </p>
</div>
</div>
</div>https://blogs.oracle.com/jaapr/entry/knock_knockKnock, knock...Jaap 2010-05-28T03:54:58+00:002010-05-28T10:54:58+00:00<p>Better late then never. I needed to publish some information to partners after I presented at a seminar. So here it is, I created a Blog entry and maybe I post more entries in the future.</p>
<p> </p>